I attended the open house and dedication of the new Dryden Aircraft
Operation Facility (DAOF), NASA Dryden's expansion to a facility in Palmdale.
The huge hangar was originally built by Northrup Grumman for B-2 bomber
assembly. It was also used as the movie set for "Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World's End". Then NASA Dryden began converting the hangar into DAOF.
The hangar now contains SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared
Astronomy), the airborne telescope built on a Boeing 747SP.
The hangar also contained a NASA DC-8,
one of the two Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA)
and several other smaller NASA aircraft.
Thanks to SOFIA Senior Scientist Sean Casey for a tour of the aircraft.
All pages and images on this site are copyright (c) Ian Kluft
unless explicitly indicated otherwise.
Permission is required to use my images, and usually available if you ask first.
