This is fun a good watch! How many of you have ever seen a large jet aircraft taking off from a dry lake bed? And toss in an A-10 and a helicopter just for good measure!
Established in 1943, Delamar landing strip on the dry lake bed also known as “Texas Lake” since it resembles the shape of the state of Texas is located in southern Nevada on the Nevada Test and Training Range.
Delamar has some interesting history to it as well as being a training ground. It was designated as an emergency landing strip for the North American X-15 experimental hyper-sonic rocket powered aircraft that could travel faster than Mach 6 and fly beyond 100,000 feet above the Earth.
Photo of the X-15 sitting on a dry lake bed courtesy of NASA
During Flight 1-63-104 on May 6, 1966, an X-15 experienced an engine failure and landed at Delamar Dry Lake.
Also, On May 21, 1962, X-15 pilot Neil Armstrong, who later became a Gemini and Apollo astronaut (first person to walk on the moon), flew a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to Delamar Dry Lake in case it would be needed for an upcoming X-15 flight. The F-104 was damaged in the landing attempt at Delamar when the landing gear began to retract. Armstrong got the plane back in the air and diverted to Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. – Wikipedia
The Texas Lake ‘runway’ is 15,000 feet long. No facilities were ever built there and it is not maintained although as the video shows, it can still be utilized for training.
Featured image of C-17 Globemaster taking off from Delamar Dry Lake Bed by Video Screen Capture
