NASA’s DC-8 airborne science laboratory banks low over the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
NASA used this DC-8 aircraft as a flying science laboratory. The platform aircraft, based at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, collects data for many experiments in support of scientific projects serving the world scientific community. Included in this community are NASA, federal, state, academic and foreign investigators. Data gathered by the DC-8 at flight altitude and by remote sensing have been used for scientific studies in archeology, ecology, geography, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, volcanology, atmospheric chemistry, soil science and biology.
Test pilots Bruce Peterson, Milt Thompson, Don Mallick and Chuck Yeager in the cockpit of the M2-F1.
X-29 technology demonstrator aircraft as it lifts off from the runway at Edwards Air Force base on a 1989 test flight.
NASA’s Gulfstream III and Gulfstream V fly over downtown Houston on Aug. 28, 2018.
X-15A-2 with full scale ablative and external tanks installed parked in front of hangar.