Tonopah Test Range Airport ,AirNav: KTNX - Tonopah Test RangeFlightAware: KTNX - Tonopah Test RangeGreat Circle Mapper: XSD/KTNX - Tonopah, Nevada (Tonopah Test Range) at the Tonopah Test Range (Senior Trend project site PS-66, abbreviated TTR), Stealth Fighter Association webpage, accessed 2011-10-26. is southeast of Tonopah, Nevada, and northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a major airfield with a runway, instrument approach facilities, and nighttime illumination. The facility has over fifty hangars and an extensive support infrastructure.
Overview Tonopah is controlled by the USAF Air Combat Command. The primary use of this airport, to public knowledge, is to shuttle government employees to the weapons test range from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. Historically it has been used for classified Air Force operations.
The primary (paved) access to the facility is off of U.S. Route 6 at the north end of the airport. Dirt road access points also exist on the south and east sides of the range. The site is plainly visible from commercial airliners, which pass north of the base on transcontinental flights.
History The Tonopah Range Airport first opened in 1957, supporting operations on the test range itself, which was used for United States Atomic Energy Commission funded nuclear weapon programs.
The earliest known depiction of the airfield was on the July 1970 Air Force Tactical Pilotage Chart. The 1982 Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Airport Directory described the Tonopah Test Range airfield as having a single paved runway.
4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron
Operation Rolling Thunder in March 1965 led the North Vietnamese Air Force to introduce the subsonic MiG-17 (J5) and the supersonic MiG-21 to the Vietnam War, pitting them against U.S. aircraft.Michell III p. 75–81 The MiG-21 posed a major threat to Israeli Air Defenses as well as to American pilots, so the US loaned a MiG-21 that Israel had acquired, and evaluated it in a series of test flights known as Have Doughnut. A similar program was carried out with MiG-17s under the codes Have Drill and Have Ferry.
By June 1969, the results of the evaluations of the MiG-21 and MiG-17s were incorporated into the USAF Fighter Weapons School and the Navy TOPGUN training school, and aggressor squadrons were formed there to train pilots in mock dogfights. In May 1973, Project Have Idea was initiated for joint technical and tactical evaluation of Soviet aircraft types, and took over the older Have Doughnut, Have Drill, and Have Ferry projects. It was undertaken by Detachment 1, 57th Fighter Weapons Wing. On 1 April 1977, the 4477th Tactical Evaluation Flight (4477th TEF) was formed at Nellis AFB as a tactical evaluation organization and aggressor squadron under the 57th Fighter Weapons Wing.
Sales of United States fighter aircraft to Indonesia and Egypt in the mid-1970s to replace the Soviet fighter aircraft allowed these nations to covertly transfer unneeded MiG-21 and newer MiG-23 aircraft to the United States for evaluation. Up to 25 of these Soviet aircraft made their way to Groom Lake and pilots assigned to Detachment 1, 57th FWW at Nellis were sent to the facility for training as pilots for aggressor squadrons. However, by the mid-1970s, as the fleet of Soviet aircraft grew at Groom Lake it became crowded and a new classified facility was needed.
The Tonopah Test Range Airport was only 70 miles to the northwest of Groom Lake and was on the controlled AEC Test Range, so it fit the need for a new facility. The AEC airport had the potential for improvement and expansion, and the only public land overlooking the base was miles away. Although it is not as hidden as Groom Lake, the airport was remote enough to operate the Soviet aircraft in secrecy. The security surrounding the Tonopah Test Range was so effective that the new base was not publicly reported as an Air Force military airfield until 1985. On July 17 1979, the 4477th TEF flew its first operational sorties from Tonopah . In 1980 the 4477th TEF was re-designated as the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron (4477th TES) and the operation was renamed to Constant Peg. The squadron developed realistic combat training operations featuring adversary tactics, dissimilar air combat training, and electronic warfare. From Tonopah, aerial dogfights were staged between the various MiG models against virtually every US fighter aircraft. There were also tests against SAC's B-52 Stratofortress and B-58 Hustlers to judge the ability of the bombers countermeasures systems, during which they performed radar cross-section and propulsion tests that contributed to improvements in US aerial performance.
Planes kept coming in to the test range. At least three Cuban pilots defected with their MiGs. A number of Chinese made MiGs were purchased outright from China via a front company and were imported in crates. Three Syrians flew their MiG-23 and MiG-29s to Turkey in 1988.
Over the course of the 4477th TES's time in Tonopah, U.S. test pilots flew several models of Soviet-designed MiGs and other foreign aircraft, including: MiG-17
Shenyang J-6
MiG-21
MiG-23 MiG-25 MiG-29 Sukhoi Su-22 None of the Soviet-designed aircraft at Tonopah flew in bad weather or at night. All were very short-legged, compared to contemporary US aircraft, and sorties were limited to 20 minutes or so. The MiGs had US airspeed indicators and a few other minor instrument and safety modifications. Other than that, they were stock, even maintaining their Warsaw Pact paint jobs. The pilots had no manuals for the aircraft, although some tried to write one. Nor was there a consistent supply of spare parts, which had to be refurbished or manufactured at high cost.
Near the end of the Cold War the program was abandoned and the squadron was disbanded. Flight operations closed down in March 1988, although the 4477th was not deactivated until July 1990, according to one official Air Force history. The decision to shut down operations may have been the combination of a new generation of Soviet aircraft entering service and a round of budget cuts from Washington.
The assets of the squadron could not go to the scrapyard at Davis-Monthan AFB, and the fate of them remains, in some cases, still classified. Several of the MiG-21s were sent to museums or now are on static display. Some of the airplanes may have been broken up, and it is rumored that some were buried in the Nevada desert. A few were used for target practice on Air Force weapons ranges.
In 2006, the Constant Peg program was declassified and the USAF held a series of press conferences about the former top secret US MiGs. It was revealed that the US MiGs flew more than 15,000 sorties and nearly 7,000 aircrew flew in training against dissimilar aggressors in the Nevada desert between 1980 and the end of the program in 1988.
F-117A Nighthawk program
In the 1980s, Tonopah Airport became a major operating location for the Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk. The first flight testing of the stealth YF-117A aircraft began in June 1981 at Groom Lake Nevada. However, Groom Lake had too many other operations going on to support another operational unit, and having the operational unit at Groom Lake would allow the many uninvolved personnel to see the highly classified project. Therefore, a new covert base had to be established for F-117 operations.Area 51
In the summer of 1979, Tonopah Test Range Airport was selected to be the home of the Tactical Air Command 4450th Tactical Group (4450th TG). The mission of the 4450th at Tonopah was to bring the classified F-117A Stealth Fighter to an initial operating capability.Peebles, Curtis, (1999), Dark Eagles, Presidio Press; Revised edition,
Beginning in October 1979 Tonopah Test Range Airport was reconstructed and expanded. The base was immediately staffed with US Air Force security police. The flight line was walled off with a double fence; the only access to the runway was through gates. The area between the fences was lighted at night and had intruder detectors. At first, the facilities were limited to a few buildings, a small mess hall, and sixteen winterized trailers. Security checkpoints were placed on the sole public access road which led to the test range. The runway was lengthened to . Taxiways, a concrete apron, a large maintenance hangar, and a propane storage tank were added. Phase II of the expansion involved the construction of an extra taxiway, a new control tower, a hangar, a parts warehouse, a dining hall, a water storage tank, and extensive fuel storage tanks. Phase III of the expansion was a runway extension to a total length of . Extensions were made to taxiways, to the ramp, the runway gained arrestor gear, and new navigation aids were installed. More fuel storage was provided, together with Liquid Oxygen (LOX) storage, a fire station, and the first 24 aircraft hangars. The cost was over $100 million.
On 17 May 1982, the move of the 4450th TG from Groom Lake to Tonopah was initiated, with the final components of the move completed in early 1983. The Tactical Air Command ("R"-Unit), also known as the "Baja Scorpions", remained at Groom Lake until the last production F-117 was delivered from Lockheed in July 1990. During the operational lifetime of the F-117 personnel from Tonopah and later Holloman AFB would still be temporarily deployed to Groom Lake for various checkout flights of classified elements of the aircraft.Pace, Steve (1992) F-117A Stealth Fighter, Aero Publishers; 1st edition
The F-117 project was highly classified and Tonopah Test Range became a black project facility. As such, the area around Tonopah was closely monitored and security was stringent. If a truck was seen in the hills around the base it would be investigated, as were airplanes flying near the base's restricted airspace. Air Force members were prohibited from driving into the town of Tonopah without special permission. Personnel crossing into the double-fence area housing the hangars and flightline were required to pass through a security control point. The control point used an Identimat hand geometry scanner provided by Wackenhut, the company that provided perimeter security on the TTR. The F-117 operations building was a windowless vault. Within the building was another vault room where the flight manuals were stored. When in use, the manuals had to be in the pilot's physical possession.
Nearly all Air Force personnel and their families lived in the city of Las Vegas. Group personnel would be flown to Tonopah each Monday morning and board a contract Key Airlines Boeing 727-100 aircraft at Nellis AFB, which operated about 15 daily flights between the two bases. The personnel would live in dormitories at "Mancamp" during the work week, then fly back to Nellis AFB Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. All dormitory rooms had private bathrooms and showers, televisions with about 30 cable TV channels, a telephone with unrestricted local service to Las Vegas, access to laundry rooms in the building, and access to 24-hour recreational and dining facilities around Mancamp. Civilian engineers and executives were allowed to commute on the Key Airlines or Janet flights, but all other civilians generally lived in the surrounding region and drove to the TTR in their own vehicles or commuted in chartered buses.
F-117A operations