- Apr. 14, 1981 - 320,000 people at Edwards watched
Columbia, the first space shuttle, land. Dryden VIPs numbered 20,000,
and 300,000 were at the East Shore public viewing site
- Oct. 1, 1981 - Dryden consolidated with Ames Research
Center, Moffett Field, CA, to become the Ames-Dryden Flight Research
Facility. Position of Dryden director renamed site manager and John
Manke was selected for the post. NASA personnel numbered 491
- July 4, 1982 - President Ronald Reagan headed list
of 45,000 guests at Dryden watching the fourth Space Shuttle landing.
Crowd of 500,000 watched from East Shore public viewing site
- Oct. 30, 1984 - NASA's oldest aircraft at the time,
the C-47 that towed the M2-F1 lifting body aloft during that program's
early days and was used to support many other projects, was retired
- Dec. 1, 1984 - A remotely-piloted Boeing 720 test
aircraft used in the joint FAA/NASA Controlled Impact Demonstration
erupted in flames as it slid through the impact site on the dry lakebed,
demonstrating that, contrary to expectations, an anti-misting fuel
additive did not substantially inhibit fuel fires
- Apr. 2, 1985 - Steve Ishmael was the first NASA
pilot to fly the X-29 research aircraft investigating forward-swept
wings, composite construction concepts, and integrated flight controls
- July 10, 1986 - F-111 Mission Adaptive Wing research
aircraft flew Mach 1 for the first time, with Rogers Smith part of
two-person crew. Program tested wing with no ailerons, flaps, or slats.
The camber changed mechanically in flight based on performance and
mission
- Dec. 18, 1989 - The first self-repairing flight
control system was demonstrated on the F-15 Highly Integrated Digital
Electronic Control (HIDEC) aircraft, with Jim Smolka as the pilot.
The system identified control surface failures or damage, then automatically
repositioned other control surfaces to allow the pilot to continue
the mission or land safely
- Feb. 15, 1990 - First of three SR-71's arrived
at Dryden for a program to investigate a host of disciplines to help
development of future high-speed civil and military aircraft. Two
YF-12A's, prototypes of the SR-71, and a YF-12C were flown at Dryden
from 1970 to 1979 in an earlier high-speed program
- April 5, 1990 - Pegasus® space booster successfully
air-launched from NASA's B-52 in one of the first successful flights
of a commercially developed space launch vehicle placing a payload
into earth orbit. The launch, was off the California coast, with a
NASA-Navy payload placed in a polar orbit 320 miles high
- May 3, 1990 - First flight in NASA's first program
to investigate laminar flow at supersonic speeds with actively controlled
suction. Program used the only two F-16XL prototypes to investigate
passive and active methods of reducing turbulence on wing surfaces
at high speeds
- Oct. 25, 1990 - Final test in a series of eight
using B-52 No. 008 to validate drag chute deployment system for use
on space shuttles to improve their landing efficiency. The tests with
008 were on the lakebed and main runway
- Dec. 3, 1990 - Position of Dryden site manager
redesignated as director in reorganization that strengthened Dryden's
role as a national flight research installation, with Ken Szalai,
chief of Dryden's Research Engineering Division, named to new position.
Dryden personnel numbered 430
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