History

For nearly 50 years, Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee served as the sole location of what is now known as Arnold Engineering Development Complex.

The occasional article about it still crops up from time to time. Its story remains a highlight of public tours of Arnold Air Force Base, headquarters of Arnold Engineering Development Complex. Those who worked at the installation when it was active often remark on its notoriety when discussing their time at Arnold.

In 1958, only a few years after the Propulsion Wind Tunnel 16-foot transonic wind tunnel became operational at Arnold Engineering Development Center, a full-scale guided missile was put through simulated flight conditions without ever leaving the ground.

While much of what was then known as Arnold Engineering Development Center’s space-related work in the 1950s focused on sending Americans beyond Earth’s orbit, such efforts throughout the 1960s aimed to take them even farther.

BRAD HICKS AEDC Contributor Throughout the tail end of the same decade in which it was dedicated, test cells at what was then known as… Login to continue reading Login…

Eight days. That was all the time that passed between the Air Force accepting two new rocket test cells at Arnold Engineering Development Center and one of them roaring to life for the first time. On Dec. 11, 1963, the Air Force formally accepted the J-4 and J-5 rocket test cells. On Dec. 19, the first rocket motor was fired in J-5.