Re: Ancient History: X-15 Landing at Mud Lake, Or Was It Groom Lake?


Message posted by Wildweasel on November 10, 2003 at 11:30:20 PST:

I finally found the photo which prompts me to ask this question. It's the 1968 USGS aerial photo of Groom Lake that's available at the Desert Secrets website.

If you look in the upper right corner you can see part of a runway outlined in black on the lakebed. The original Area 51 runway is also present, extending what to me looks to be 15,000 feet in length.

With that much paved runway available I cannot imagine anything flying from there that would need a lakebed runway for landing. But the X-15 was not designed to land on pavement, instead needing a lakebed surface for its rear landing gear skids to slide on and bring the rocketplane to a halt.

Seeing the fading outline of a lakebed runway at Groom Lake one year after the X-15 program ended is what makes me wonder if Groom was not a planned emergency landing location and if the landing at Mud Lake didn't really take place at Groom.

Attached link: http://www.desertsecrets.com/i.lakes.landsat.med.jpg

In Reply to: Re: Ancient History: X-15 Landing at Mud Lake, Or Was It Groom Lake? posted by Magoo on November 09, 2003 at 15:12:10 PST:

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