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>>Flashing across California desert skies, the airplanes you see

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here are writing new chapters in the story
of man made flight....there she goes!

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>>This is my first opportunity
to greet you as deputy administrator

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of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.

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>>Together, you and I must make our new agency

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>>A most unusual place

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>>An organization that can challenge
conventional wisdom.

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>>We can engineer anything we can write the requirements for.

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>>We're going to make your idea work.

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This particular idea is quite disruptive.

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>>A typical flight, of course, starts
under the wing of the B-52 mothership.

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>>This sleek, high speed machine
would have made Rube Goldberg proud.

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>>The manner in which we fly
reentry from space,

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on the space shuttle was
pioneered on the X-15.

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>>The X-31 pretty much wrote the book on thurst vectoring, along with its sister program, the F-18 HARV.

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>>An observation of an occulation is

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one of the more challenging
missions that SOFIA can do.

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[Music/Background sound]

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>>Right now, we are looking
at the dawn of a new era of aviation.

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[Music/Background sound]

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[Music]

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>>Electrical pulses,

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transmitted with the speed of light...

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>>...to help man to see,

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to control, and tame the environment
of hurtling speed

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his science has created.

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>>Called telemetry,

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each craft has its own signature,
a unique tone

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[Music/Electrical sounds]

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>>Tracking
radar is designed to keep one target

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continuously centered in its beam.

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>>...facilities and equipment for air to ground

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monitoring of test flights were primitive.

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>>When I got here, they had just
barely converted from one where the guy

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sat there
and he actually looked at the airplane

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and steered that thing by hand.

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>>The radars are accurate
to within three meters.

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We know that
if the radar is locked on to the airplane,

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that if we slave the telemetry dish
or the LRO to it,

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that that dish will also be right
on the airplane.

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>>Flight research results
depended mostly on air to air chase

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observations and onboard data
recording for later examination.

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>>When I came here, they were taking data
from the airplanes on these oscilloscopes.

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We had to read the times off of ticks
on the film.

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Now there is onboard computers
that uplink and downlink...

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>>...real time data rather than coming down
and analyzing data between flights...

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>>...large computational problems are resolved
in real time

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as opposed to waiting
until the data gets down.

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>>Radar coverage is limited to line of sight
and is unable to see over the horizon

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or behind mountainous terrain...

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>>Before the X-15,

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all of that coverage could be accomplished
from a single location.

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The X-15 didn't allow that
because it had to extend much farther away

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from the base.

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>>Dryden engineers developed
a complex system for flight monitoring

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that went far beyond anything yet
known.

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>>The range allowed researchers

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on the ground to track the X-15
throughout its entire mission.

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>>My experience with the implementation
and operation of the high range was in line

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with the extension of flight profiles
from some few hundred miles

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through circling the Earth.

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>>A hypersonic research

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vehicle or
trans-atmospheric research vehicle;

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You are going to be completely dependent
on the range for a successful mission.

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>>The Western Aeronautical Test
Range of today is the high range grown up,

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a functioning integration
of state of the art communications,

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tracking equipment,
computers and electronic display systems.

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>>Every critical function of the X-29
is monitored from the ground.

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>>We actually collect on the order of 250
to 300 pieces of data

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telemetered to the ground.

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>>AFTI's total dependence on computers

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and enormous data output require
a great deal of range support.

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>>The shuttle's safe return depends
heavily on the range's precision

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operation monitoring the space plane
during its return to Earth.

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>>Pilots fly remotely piloted research
vehicles from cockpits on the ground,

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depending completely on telemetry
provided by the range to receive sensory

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information
from and send commands to the airplane.

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>>The key to a successful research

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mission is uninterrupted communications
and data links with test vehicles.

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>>The capability that we have here
is probably better

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than any existing capability
anywhere in the country.

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>>We have radar, we have telemetry, video,

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communications, flight termination,
long range optics, ramp cameras.