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  • Boeing Inertial Upper Stage Space Payload Booster

    The IUS and the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite are stacked together in the 4th BLDG Space Gallery.The Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) is an unpiloted upper-stage booster rocket used from 1982-2004. After launch on an unmanned rocket or inside a space shuttle, the IUS boosted its payload into a

  • Boeing X-40A

    The unmanned, unpowered Boeing X-40A was the first-phase flight test vehicle for the U.S. Air Force’s Space Maneuver Vehicle program that began in the late 1990s. The program aimed to develop small, reusable, highly maneuverable spacecraft for deploying satellites and conducting surveillance and

  • Brig. Gen. James M. Stewart

    On March 22, 1941, Jimmy Stewart was drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces. He was assigned to the Army Air Corps as an enlisted man and stationed at Moffett Field, Calif. During his nine months of training at that base, he also took extension courses with the idea of obtaining a commission. He

  • Bell X-5

    The X-5 was the world's first high-performance airplane to vary the sweepback of its wings in flight. It investigated the characteristics of variable sweep aircraft in flight and the feasibility of producing aircraft with this feature. The X-5 was based upon the design of a Messerschmitt P. 1101

  • Beech VC-6A

    In 1966 the U.S. Air Force purchased a standard Beechcraft King Air B90 with a special VIP interior, designated as the VC-6A, to support President Lyndon B. Johnson and his family. The aircraft was faster and more agile than other light transport aircraft and featured full pressurization for comfort

  • Boeing YQM-94A Compass Cope B

    The YQM-94A was a high altitude, long-range, Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) tested in the 1970s. It was designed for long-endurance photographic reconnaissance and electronic surveillance missions.Piloted from the ground, the YQM-94A received guidance signals through a radio link. A television and

  • Bell Helicopter Textron XV-3

    The product of a 1951 joint U.S. Air Force-U.S. Army initiative, the Bell XV-3 became the world's first successful Vertical Short TakeOff and Landing (VSTOL) tilt-rotor aircraft. By combining the takeoff and hovering capabilities of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing aircraft, the

  • Bell XGAM-63 Rascal

    Please note: This aircraft is in storage.The Rascal was an air-to-surface, supersonic guided missile tested in the 1950s. It was a “stand-off” nuclear weapon to be launched from Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers up to 100 miles away from the target.The first launch of a guided Rascal took place in

  • Boeing X-45A J-UCAS

    The pioneering X-45A demonstrated that highly autonomous uninhabited aircraft could be used to attack opposing surface-to-air defenses (called Suppression of Enemy Air Defense or SEAD).  Begun by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the program was later managed by the U.S. Air

  • Bensen X-25A Gyrocopter

    In early 1968, the U.S. Air Force ordered three X-25 type aircraft to test methods of improving the odds of a downed flyer’s escape. At the time, the USAF was suffering heavy losses in the Rolling Thunder air campaign over North Vietnam.The unpowered Bensen X-25 Discretionary Descent Vehicle (also