Google Earth - 2 interesting planes @ Edwards

Saw some pics in a Facebook group I'm in that showed a couple of interesting airframes at Edwards AFB. The consensus was that these were scrapped X-34s. Panning around also shows a couple of Global Hawks, some B1-Bs and an F-16XL?

I highly recommend joining the group "Rare and Unusual Aircraft Types" on FB if you're not already. Lots of cool planes

a reply to: TXRabbit

First picture is interesting, I don't understand though why there is no blowup for the second image, if just for the record..

a reply to: TXRabbit

Yep, they're X-34s. They were built, but never flew, and sent to the Edwards boneyard. I believe they may be restored and displayed somewhere, but I'm not certain about that.

That looks like it was the F-16XL when it had the laminar flow sleeve mounted. They were doing laminar flow experiments with it at one point IIRC.

a reply to: Zaphod58

They laying on their backs. Looks like the scramjet intake is on top.

originally posted by: TXRabbit
Saw some pics in a Facebook group I'm in that showed a couple of interesting airframes at Edwards AFB. The consensus was that these were scrapped X-34s. Panning around also shows a couple of Global Hawks, some B1-Bs and an F-16XL?

I highly recommend joining the group "Rare and Unusual Aircraft Types" on FB if you're not already. Lots of cool planes

Thanks zaphod. I was about to come edit it but ya beat me to it lol.

Althought I did ID the F-16 XL on the bottom. Another protype that did not see production,with the f-18 bodies.

a reply to: yuppa

They're neither.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Doesn't look like the "a" model they c or d models?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Never mind I'm stupid your link explains all of it. Ignore ne

Those have been parked out there for Google maps to see since 2013 that I've kept checking. Interesting concept since the X-37

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: TXRabbit

Yep, they're X-34s. They were built, but never flew, and sent to the Edwards boneyard. I believe they may be restored and displayed somewhere, but I'm not certain about that.

That looks like it was the F-16XL when it had the laminar flow sleeve mounted. They were doing laminar flow experiments with it at one point IIRC.

So May 2019 when I was in Palmdale I went looking for them. I was prompted by an article in the The War Zone" that had pics of them rotting away in a Lancaster junkyard. They appear to have been moved, as I was not able to spot them, but its not 100% clear and given the attention I was attracting in the area, I did not spend alot of time looking either

www.thedrive.com...

a reply to: FredT WE did some construction work at Edwards in 90's,quite an eloborate underground,heard that they connect to area 51,lot of security,secure areas,hard to sift stories from truth as both could be feasible,very strange area,even the soil there is vitrified calleche

a reply to: FredT

The X-34 vehicles seem to have vanished. After the program was canceled they were moved from place to place around Edwards AFB for several years. Parts of a third airframe were in storage with spare parts and miscellaneous support equipment. Eventually, everything ended up at North Base.

With the hangar doors open, X-34A-1 and X-34A-2 were exposed to some degree of weathering, as well as to damage caused by rodents and birds. In 2009, the two vehicles were towed across the lakebed and onto the Precision Impact Range Area (PIRA), also known as the Edwards bombing range, where they reportedly served as laser targets. On the PIRA, the composite airframes were exposed to a variety of weather conditions ranging from extreme heat to extreme cold, strong winds, dust storms, and rain.

After the vehicles were moved to the PIRA, the spare parts and other equipment were disposed of as trash and scrap. Parts destined for the third airframe lay o the North Base ramp like remnants of a giant model kit. The speed brakes and elevons from the X-34A-1 had been removed and placed in a dumpster. I was working in the NASA Dryden history office at the time and I took it upon myself to rescue the speed brakes and outboard elevons (I never did find the inboard elevons) and store them in a NASA warehouse in the event that someone might want to put them back on the vehicle someday.

That day eventually came. Someone decided to remove the vehicles from the PIRA in early 2010. Unfortunately, they became stranded on the edge of the lakebed due to inclement weather. A rain storm made the lakebed surface to wet to allow the vehicles to be towed across. So, they sat on the roadway leading to the old East Shore Space Shuttle Public Viewing Site for several months, where they were clearly visible and accessible to anyone driving by on the road connecting east Lancaster to Boron.

By early May 2010, the lakebed had dried out and the X-34 vehicles were returned to NASA Dryden and placed in outdoor storage near the Space Shuttle area. I called several people to let them know where to find the speed brakes and elevons, and these items eventually disappeared from the warehouse.

By 2012, the both X-34s had been transported to Mojave Airport, where they sat on the east end of the ramp. In September 2013 they were back at NASA Dryden. The main landing gear of one of them had been given to Sierra Nevada Corporation for use on the Dream Chaser lifting body. It was one of those gear that failed to deploy during the first Dream Chaser free flight, causing the lifting body to depart the runway and roll in the desert.

Sometime in 2017, both X-34 vehicles were moved to "temporary storage" at Smith's QuickCrane Inc. in Lancaster pending transport to a museum in Florida. Two years later, the new owner had not yet collected the aircraft. By this time both vehicles were in very bad condition and in pieces. In February 2019 Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick published a story and pictures on The Drive. Shortly afterward, a flatbed truck arrived at Smith's QuickCrane and some "government type" told the proprietor that they were there to take the craft away.

Neither X-34 has been seen since. I made a number of inquires. Apparently, they are not at NASA Armstrong, the Edwards boneyard, the AF Flight Test Museum, or the PIRA (a place where things sometimes get buried). There was a company at the time in Van Nuys that wanted to reverse engineer the X-34 but I don't know if they had any involvement with the disappearance.