page_title: Edwards Air Force Base
section_title: Postwar era
hierarchical_section_title: Edwards Air Force Base / History / Postwar era
context_page_description: Edwards Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation located in Kern County in Southern California, about 22 miles northeast of Lancaster, 15 miles east of Rosamond and 5.5 miles south of California City.
  It is the home of the Air Force Test Center, Air Force Test Pilot School, and NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. It is the Air Force Materiel Command center for conducting and supporting research and development of flight, as well as testing and evaluating aerospace systems from concept to combat. It also hosts many test activities conducted by America's commercial aerospace industry.
  Notable occurrences at Edwards include Chuck Yeager's flight that broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, test flights of the North American X-15, the first landings of the Space Shuttle, and the 1986 around-the-world flight of the Rutan Voyager.
context_section_description: With the end of the war, Fourth Air Force relinquished command of Muroc Army Airfield on 16 October 1945 and jurisdiction was transferred to Air Technical Service Command, becoming Air Materiel Command in 1946.  Test work on the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the primary mission of the base for the greater part of the fall of 1945. The Consolidated Vultee XP-81 single seat, long range escort fighter and Republic XP-84 Thunderjet fighter arrived at the base in early 1946 for flight testing.  It was obvious even at this embryonic stage of base development that the Army Air Force desert station was destined to become a proving ground for aircraft and a testing site for experimental airplanes.
  The success of these programs attracted a new type of research activity to the base in late 1946. The rocket-powered Bell X-1 was the first in a long series of experimental airplanes designed to prove or disprove aeronautical concepts—to probe the most challenging unknowns of flight and solve its mysteries. Further evidence of things to come was experienced on 14 October 1947 when Captain. Charles "Chuck" Yeager flew the small bullet-shaped airplane to become the first human to exceed the speed of sound.
  Four months later, on 10 February 1948, Muroc AAF was re-designated Muroc Air Force Base with the establishment of the United States Air Force as a separate military service. Units attached or assigned to the base at the time were the 4144th Army Air Force Base Unit, the 3208th Strategic Bomb Test Squadron along with communications and weather detachments. On 20 August 1948, the 4144th Air Force Base Unit was re-designated as the 2759th AF Base Unit and with the adoption of the Hobson Plan, as the 2759th Experimental Wing.
  
  With the X-1, flight testing at Muroc began to assume two distinct identities. Highly experimental research programs—such as the X-3, X-4, X-5 and XF-92A—were typically flown in conjunction with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, and were conducted in a methodical fashion to answer largely theoretical questions. Then, as now, the great bulk of flight testing at Muroc focused on evaluations of the capabilities of aircraft and systems proposed for the operational inventory.
  In December 1949, Muroc was renamed Edwards Air Force Base in honor of Captain Glen Edwards (1918–1948), who was killed a year earlier in the crash of the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing. During World War II, he flew A-20 Havoc light attack bombers in the North African campaign on 50 hazardous, low-level missions against German tanks, convoys, troops, bridges, airfields, and other tactical targets. Edwards became a test pilot in 1943 and spent much of his time at Muroc Army Air Field, on California's high desert, testing wide varieties of experimental prototype aircraft. He died in the crash of a Northrop YB-49 flying wing near Muroc AFB on 5 June 1948. From the time Edwards Air Force Base was named, speed and altitude records began to pile up as new aircraft were developed and the base started to build and branch out significantly.
  A major reason for the growth of Edwards AFB was the nearness of West Coast aircraft manufacturers.  However, another major reason was the decision in 1947 to build a missile test facility on the base. The need for a static missile faculty to test high-thrust missile rocket engines was first envisioned in 1946 by the Power Plant Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  It was that decision that such a facility should be government-owned to prevent a single contractor exclusive advantages on Air Force contracts for high-thrust missile rocket power plants, and it would eliminate duplication of like facilities by different manufacturers.  The choice of location in 1947 was the Leuhman Ridge east of Rogers Dry Lake on Edwards AFB. Construction began in November 1949 on what was to become the Experimental Rocket Engine Test Station.
caption: Northrop YB-49 taking off for the first time on 21 October 1947
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