The Navy's sprawling Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake has over 1.1 million acres of land and 20,000 square miles of controlled airspace at its disposal as it sits at the heart of the huge R-2508 range complex in central California. There the Navy and an army of contractors pave the way for the future of warfare, testing the newest evolutions in bombs, missiles, cannon shells, electronic warfare and communications systems, and the aircraft that will put much of them to use. These development processes often involve blowing things up in spectacular fashion.

The facility is an integral part of the gigantic, but shy weapons test, development, and evaluation ecosystem that spans all 50 states and is essential to maintaining America's combat edge over its adversaries. Yet knowing about a place like NAWS China Lake is a lot different than having a first-hand account of what it is like to live and work there. Thankfully, Randy Smith, a civilian employee that worked at China Lake in a unique capacity for years, has offered to share his recollections about a place that he learned to love not just for its remote beauty and 'unique' technological sights and sounds, but also for the esprit de corps among those who work there, often under tight security restrictions. This is commonly referred to as "the China Lake way" by insiders and Randy gives us a clearer view of what the place and its motto are really all about. How I fell into China Lake Growing up in the Indian Wells Valley is very challenging. The area is desolate and the nearest populated area is an hour and a half drive to Lancaster for shopping, dining, or anything else for that matter. In the times of no internet and nothing else to do there were very limited entertainment opportunities other than partying or riding dirt bikes. For the most part, unless you worked on the base or in the nearby town of Trona at the soda ash processing plants, there weren’t many career opportunities. Being a gearhead growing up I was working at an auto parts store when my fiancé saw a job in the paper for a position on base. I never thought I’d land a job like that, but I interviewed for it and low and behold got hired.

USN Super Hornet flying over Armitage Field which lies at the center of NAWS China Lake.

I started my working career on the base in Oct of 1989. I was hired on as a courier transporting 14-inch analog tapes that recorded data on various aircraft when they were flight testing missiles, bombs, and certain data pods of the era. I was to be located at a building next to the airfield on the base where you had to have special clearance to even get through the gate. The airfield is north of town as are the many ranges. All these places are located in very remote areas in the desert. You may think there isn’t much out there while traveling north on Highway 395, but the range facilities are filled with radar sites, target areas, and an occasional lone laboratory with some strange engineer who hasn’t seen daylight in four days hanging out most the week by himself. The aircraft that were being tested were A-6Es, AV-8Bs, A-7s, AH-1 Cobras, and many others. I worked for the contractor that oversaw processing the data on those tapes using Honeywell tape machines and converting them to digital tapes for processing on the VAX mainframes by data technicians or for the flight test engineers in charge of the test projects.

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I also traveled to the outer ranges to collect range data tapes that got processed in the same manner. With this job function, I had to get a clearance to just be in sensitive areas which took very little time. I believe the process went so fast because I pretty much grew up in the area so they didn’t have to go far for a background check. I immediately took to fiddling around on the VAX mainframe in my spare time, learning the system and programming various little batch commands to run minor things. In true fashion of what is termed “the China Lake way” where every one civilian and military alike worked together for one common goal. I was able to transition into a data reduction job working on the A-6E Intruder System Weapon Improvement Program (SWIP) within six months because I was learning things so fast and demonstrating my potential. This upward movement was unheard of at the time. Perhaps my boss sensed that I had more to offer than what met the eye and that’s why he hired me, or I just got lucky. It's all about the data As mentioned earlier, when an aircraft was doing flight test evaluation in the ‘80s and ’90s there were a lot of parts to put together to analyze the data. The data reduction group was where that began. There were not only aircraft tapes to analyze, but also range data tapes that were recorded from the ground stations tracking the aircraft and the test articles. The aircraft tracked time, speed, INS (Inertial Navigation System), weapon release data, and TPSI (Time and Space Position Information), amongst other things. The implementation of GPS and coupling it with aircraft INS data was in its infancy at that time and was not considered reliable for precise data recording purposes at the time. The range tapes were often generated by mobile laser tracking stations that had to be calibrated against objects of known distance prior to the tests. The first part of breaking down the recorded data was to ensure the laser was calibrated correctly. The data from the aircraft was then merged with the range data to determine if the test results were desirable. The aircraft, as well as the weapons they were testing, were equipped with little prism mirrors on various points so that the lasers could see them and record their telemetry at any given moment. I became involved in testing on HARM, Harpoon, cluster munitions, SLAM, and even a little-known project called Tacit Rainbow. At one point I had discovered collisions with the 1553 bus data that was being recorded on an aircraft. I went over to the hanger and had some discussions with the maintenance crew and they had found some loose connections in the bus connectors. They allowed me to sit on the cockpit which is every young man’s dream at one point or another.

USN China Lake A-6E during HARM testing.

It was very interesting to see the typewriter style buttons and ancient controls in the A-6. I was also shown the bottom of this aircraft where patches were made to holes caused by ground fire from guys hiding in the rice patties when the plane was flying low over Vietnam. That aircraft was indeed old. Not too long after I started this position the Gulf War began. The flight weapons testing got hot and heavy, but the best part was here I am just some 22-year-old hack local off the street and was put into a position to evaluate testing data in support of the A-6 missions taking place in the Middle East. A year and a half earlier I had never touched a mainframe computer and only watched the aircraft fly in and out of the airfield. This was all new to me and very exciting. Our main focus at the time was the assessment of data generated from MK-20 Rockeye cluster munitions testing on the A-6. As Operation Desert Storm continued into the late stages of the air campaign we got the unique opportunity to perform data reduction in direct support of the bombing operations on the “highway of death” between Kuwait and Iraq. There were a couple of weeks worth of late night data processing for tests related to this event and our results of these tests went directly to the Navy in support of wartime operations.

Seaforces.org A-6Es about to get loaded up with Mk20s during Operation Desert Storm.

This was a very proud moment for me to be able to participate in helping with the Gulf War effort and we as a group were recognized for our participation by the Navy Department Heads. We each received a plaque with a personal thank you for our efforts for supporting the missions that took place. I display the plaque in my current office to this very day. Stealth encounters In 1992, stealth aircraft were still mysterious to mere mortals of the population at China Lake. Though there was low observable weapon testing at the time, the Navy didn’t have any stealth aircraft in testing. One of the really cool things about China Lake is the Electronic Combat Range that is located east of the main base some 30 miles called Echo Range. It’s remote and mostly hidden in the next valley not too far from the famous Pinnacles that have been stars of movies such as Star Trek and Planet of the Apes. There are many things in that area that are classified to this day, but there are a few things I can talk about what without landing in prison. There are several interesting buildings including one that the Navy made up like a Russian ship with Russian radars for testing of various aircraft attack angles and radar avoidance. There are the various test and data collection facilities along with every type of radar you could imagine or didn’t even know existed. There are what almost looks like UHF antennas that spin and do all kinds of crazy movements and other things that make you feel that you could be fried any moment if they were pointed at you. This range is very unique and from time to time the Air Force buys some range time and flies tests of their aircraft there. The main site for aircraft testing and evaluation for the Air Force on the west coast is located at Edwards Air Force base about an hour and a half away from China Lake.

Google Earth Armitage Field may be the center of NAWS China Lake but the range facilities span for miles in multiple directions.

The unique thing about working at the airfield in China Lake was when something cool was flying our direction from Edwards or elsewhere, the word of its presence would spread quickly. At the time, the closest most anyone would get to a B-2 without clearance was a flyover at an air show. This aircraft is one of the most awe-inspiring flying technologies ever to be seen then and now in my opinion. It’s just a beautiful machine to watch fly and makes you feel as if you were watching some alien technology that just entered our atmosphere and was about to start raining destruction. One day we got word that one was heading our direction after a test out on Echo Range and was going to perform a flyby. What we got was far better. We watched as it came over the horizon with two F-16 chase planes in tow. The formation banked to the north and turned back around south and then did a touch and go on the runway while the F-16’s stayed airborne a few feet above it. A group of us were standing on the flight line and had a front row seat to this event as it came whizzing by. The most amazing thing I remember about the experience is we could not hear the B-2 over the F-16’s. It was that quiet and they were that loud. After its awesome touch and go, the aircraft ascended and headed back to Edwards. This event may not seem much, but it was very impressive to see at the time.

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One of my fonder memories was when a group of F-117s came to the base from Edwards. They were there on an extended trip of several days to do some testing at Echo Range and were temporarily housed in Hanger 3 for maintenance. Of course, the base was buzzing about the presence of them being there. And those of us who were cleared to be out at the airfield got a special treat. We got to go over to the hanger and check them out. When we entered the hanger, we were greeted up close in person by these magnificent pieces of technology. They were cordoned off with red tape and there were air force guards on each corner with their M-16’s poised and ready if someone decided they wanted to do some sort of nefarious deed! This aircraft was still such a sensitive asset and a national treasure that it necessitated having guards even in a restricted area. To view this aircraft two feet in front of you is befuddling at the very least. It had very sharp angles and was so futuristic looking you couldn’t imagine that it was really able to fly, which it couldn’t without flight computers of course. The canopies were closed and there were technicians in white suits and covered shoes working and walking on them in various places. They had jars of what looked like black paint and were touching up the intake and canopy areas on the aircraft to presumably ensure it stayed stealthy. Looking at these things in awe caused me to do something very impulsive and was in hindsight a very bad idea. When the guard closest to me looked the other way, I reached up and touched one of the air sensors on the front of the aircraft real quick. I was thankful that the group of my coworkers that were there didn’t decide that I was being inappropriate and tell on me. To this day I tell the story of how I got to touch an F-117 and lived to talk about it.

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