I was digging through the book: Dark Eagles: A History Of Top Secret US Aircraft, in the beginning of book it mention's a little known Top Secret base Called North Base. It says it's part of Edward's Air Force Base. At first I didn' t pay much attenchen to it, but then I got a map of Calafonia out to look at. The so-called "North Base" is suppose to be on a dry lake bed in the nothern part of Edward's, but nothing appears around the lake bed. Does anyone know anything about North Base? What do you think may be there now?

Tim

North Base was built n 1942 as Muroc Flight Test Base. It was the site for testing secret jet aircraft projects (XP-59, XP-80). Later, it was used for testing the B-45 and F-89.

When the "new" Main Base complex was built at Edwards in 1950, the old Muroc Army Airfield (renemed Muroc AFB in 1947 and later Edwards AFB) became South Base while Muroc FTB became North Base.

In 1957, North Base became home to the U-2 detachment, after it left Groom Lake.

In the 1970s and 1980s, North Base housed the 6513th Test Squadron "Red Hats." that unit tested Soviet aircraft at Groom until it became the 413th Flight test Squadron "Bombcats" in the early 1990s and became involved with electronic warfare (EW) testing. A few years ago, the 413th was inactivated and absorbed into the EW Directorate.

North Base has included, at one time or another, the Red Hats/Bomcats/EW compound (a highly secure facility), the 18th Space Surveillance Squadron, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Edwards annex.

I had a rare opportunity to visit the Bombcats compound in 1999.

The EW Directorate still has facilities there and the airstrip is used by the King Air commuter fligths to Groom and Tonopah.