“…And people think we have cool jobs!”
Members of the Blue Angels, the flight demonstration squadron of the U.S. Navy, visited NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley on Oct. 6, 2021. During a tour here of the two biggest wind tunnels in the world, more than one Blue Angel could be heard expressing the possibility that the test engineers who work in these impressive facilities have the cooler job.
The National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, or NFAC, includes two enormous wind tunnels with test sections measuring 40 by 80 feet and 80 by 120 feet. The facility at Ames is managed and operated by the U.S. Air Force. The NFAC provides vital testing for some of the nation’s most sophisticated commercial and military aircraft, spacecraft, wind turbines, trucks, and even the huge parachutes used to safely land NASA rovers on Mars. In this photo, the Blue Angels team members and NFAC staff are seen inside the football field-size air intake of the 80- by 120-foot wind tunnel.
The elite pilots who fly in Blue Angels air shows around the country are supported by a large team of specialists: mechanics, avionics technicians, crew chiefs, a flight surgeon… In town to perform a flight demonstration at San Francisco’s Fleet Week, the group couldn’t miss the chance to visit the local NASA center whose facilities make so many advances in aviation possible.
Banner image credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Dominic Hart
Author: Abby Tabor, NASA’s Ames Research Center