Mojave, CA
Named for Burt Rutan's Voyager — the aircraft that flew non-stop, unrefueled around the world from this very airport in 1986. Pilot-friendly menu, unfiltered windows on the desert ramp. You'll see test flight oddities outside — XCOR, Stratolaunch, Virgin Galactic, Scaled Composites all base here.
America's first FAA-licensed inland spaceport (2004) and the desert proving ground for experimental aerospace. Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites is here — birthplace of Voyager (the round-the-world record-holder, 1986), SpaceShipOne (first private manned spaceflight, 2004), GlobalFlyer (Steve Fossett's solo round-the-world, 2005), and the White Knight carrier aircraft. Today Stratolaunch (Paul Allen's twin-fuselage giant, the largest wingspan ever flown), Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and dozens of test programs operate from the 12,500-foot main runway. Nearby Edwards AFB hosts the Space Shuttle alternate landing site — the desert here is where America tests the impossible. The "boneyard" of stored airliners on the south side is among the largest in the country. Heat is brutal in summer; check density altitude.
Walk the ramp at KMHV and you're standing where Voyager took off in 1986 to become the first aircraft to fly around the world non-stop, unrefueled (Burt Rutan's wife Jeana Yeager and brother Dick Rutan, 9 days, 3 minutes, 44 seconds). SpaceShipOne launched here in 2004 to win the Ansari X-Prize as the first private manned spacecraft. Steve Fossett took GlobalFlyer around the world solo non-stop in 2005. Today Stratolaunch — Paul Allen's twin-fuselage carrier with the largest wingspan ever flown (385 feet) — operates from this same ramp. The boneyard of stored airliners on the south side of the airport is among the largest in the country. The desert horizon makes the Earth feel like a spaceport.
Edwards Air Force Base, Rogers Dry Lake — the natural 44-square-mile lakebed where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the X-1 on October 14, 1947. Pancho Barnes ran the Happy Bottom Riding Club from 1947 to 1953 on adjacent land — pilots who broke Mach 1 earned a free steak. The club burned down in 1953 under suspicious circumstances during a land dispute with the Air Force. Today Pancho's memorial sits at the Edwards main gate. Mojave Air & Space Port (KMHV) is 30 miles west on the same lakebed system.
500 tufa towers rising 140 feet from the floor of the Searles Lake basin — calcium carbonate spires formed underwater between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago, now exposed as the lake dried. Used as filming location for Star Trek V, Planet of the Apes, and dozens of sci-fi productions. From the air, the pinnacles look like alien architecture on the desert floor. National Natural Landmark, Bureau of Land Management.
Where Kelly Johnson's Lockheed Advanced Development Programs — the Skunk Works — designed the U-2 (1955), SR-71 Blackbird (1964), and F-117 Nighthawk (1981). The original Plant B-1 sat at Burbank Airport's northwest corner. The Skunk Works moved to Palmdale (Plant 42) in 1989 and the Burbank land was redeveloped — today an Empire Center shopping mall covers most of the historic plant. Pirep marks the site for what happened here, not what stands now: the airplanes that won the Cold War were drafted on these blocks.