The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 77

April 11, 1954 SAN BERNARDINO SUN-TELEGRAM 21-D ft- 1 fx SH- ly iiiiiliili GREAT WEALTH PRODUCED BY SEARLES LAKE TRONA Searles Lake, source of the raw materials from which American Potash A Chemical Corp. extracts its products at the company's Trona plant, was ignored by most of the thousands of prospectors who roamed California in search of gold and silver. Yet In the 92 years since John Searles first staked his mining claims on the lake, it has produced more wealth than most of the big gold strikes in the area combined. Furthermore, the continued production of its wealth is assured for centuries to come. One of nature's strangest phenomena, the lake contains the biggest deposit of diversified chemicals in the world.

It was formed thousands of. years ago, according to geologists, as an outlet for a series of glacial streams originating in the High Sierras to the north. These streams, laden with minerals leached from the recks over which they flowed, filled the Searles Valley basin. With the passage of time, the climate became warmer, the ice caps disappeared and the flow of water subsided. Rainfall in the area all but ceased and an extended period of aridity lowered the level of the lake.

Constant evaporation of the water left a residue of highly concentrated mineral salts which eventually reached the point of saturation and crystallized. When the surface waters finally disappeared, there remained a porous crystalline crust 65 to 135 feet deep. This mass, with an estimated 40 per cent voids, contains the dense alkaline brine from which Trona products are extracted. straws. JET-ASSISTED TAKEOFF the aid of jet propulsion, a B-47 at the Edwards Air Force Base wards, Calif, base is one of nine such testing centers in the Air Research Development Command.

(Official USAF Photo) EXPERIMENTAL CRAFT Jet and rocket-powered research aircraft wait in their stable at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB for the momertt when they will be called upon to make assaults on speed, endurance and other aircraft records. Typical of the aircraft at the test center are, clockwise from lower left, the Bell X-1A, which recently exceeded 1600 mph; the Douglas D-588-I the Convair XF-92A; the Bell X-5; the Douglas D-558-IL and the Northrop X-4. (Official USAF Photo) Edwards Base Becomes Big Time in Few Years California Salt Plant at Amboy Employs 50 Men GEORGE AIR FORCE BASE HAS BEEN SITE FOR VARIETY OF AIR FORCE OPERATIONS followed by the 146th Fighter-Bomber Wing, another California National Guard unit. from the Southern California area were flown to George Air Force Base as an emergency precaution against aggression against the mainland. Single-engine and bombardier operations continued until December 1944.

The base was used as a storage station for moth-balled aircraft George Air Force Base, a fight er-bomber field of the 9th Air Force Tactical Air Command, has been the site of a variety of Air- Force operations throughout its short history which dates from 1941. From 1941 to 1947 this base was known as Victorville Army Air Field. In 1947, the Air Force became a separate and co-equal branch of the armed forces. As a result this base was re-designated Victorville Air Force Base. On Sept.

25, 1950, in honor of the late Brig. Gen. Harold H. George it was re named George Air Force Base. George was first constructed as a flying-training school under the command of the Army Air Force Western Flying Training Command.

In November 1941 the training of glider pilots was initiated and twin-engine pilot training was dropped. On Dec. 7, 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, hundreds of airplanes Indians Raced to Heaven? i-v Lifted from the runway with "Stratojet" streaks skyward Flight Test Center. The Ed- per annum, the desert location is a Because of these two considera tions, the construction now going on at Edwards, based on a 120 million dollar "master is no war-time "boom and bust" type of program. As long as there are airplanes, there will be a need for a place to test them the Air Force Flight Test Center has become a permanent feature of the face of the desert.

Lancaster, Mojave, Palmdale, and other neighboring communities, are important to the Air Force Flight Test Center. The personnel of the Center are vitally concerned with the development of the surrounding desert area, because it directly influences our ability to carry out the mission of the Center. Indubitably, the Air Force Flight Center will play an import ant role in the long term development of the area. To the businessman, it will mean a greater volume of trade; to the laborer, great er employment opportunities; and to the farmer, an increased market for his products. Local residents may have often wondered what the relation of the AFFTC is to the jet testing facil ity at nearby Palmdale.

A number of aircraft manufacturers have moved a part of production from Los Angeles to Palmdale. As times goes on, more will probably move there. Palmdale is actually a production facility; a final assembly point. The aircraft. before they are accepted by the Air Force, must have acceptance check flights.

These flights will be made at Palmdale. The AFFTC. on the other hand, constantly does experimental test flying on new development type aircraft. The AFFTC operation must necessar ily precede any decision to es tablish a new airplane on a pro duction basis. The objectives of the two facilities are entirely dif ferent.

The requirement for experimental work has always ex isted. TEST FACILITY However, not until the advent of high speed jets and rocket research craft did it become apparent that a test facility of the proportion of the AFFTC was necessary. The requirement for production acceptance flights is being accomplished today at every manufacturer's plant in Los Angeles. It is this latter function that is being moved to Palmdale. Thus, there is no conflict between the two, and no bar to the orderly Prior to World War a deso late area, the primary landmark of which is an ages-ago dried-up lake, was an almost worthless bit of real estate; shunned by ranchers and barely noticed by passing tour ists, inhabited by only a few hardy leftovers of America's pioneering days.

The silence was almost deafening. Today, the same area rocks to the roar of the sonic boom, the high-pitched wail of jet engines, and the more normal sounds of its 10,000 inhabitants as they go about their daily tasks. For this same, almost worthless area, has become the proving ground for the products of the top minds of modern avia tion The Air Force Flight Test Center. The pioneers are there, in even greater numbers, but their vehicles are the jet and rocket airplanes of tomorrow, in place of the covered wagons of yesteryear. Like the pioneers of the past, these men have names.

The pages of history are filled with the names of men who fought their way toward new frontiers, men like Daniel Boone and Wild Bill Hickok. Tomorrow's history books will carry the names of men like Maj. Charles (Chuck) Yeager and the late Capt. Glenn Edwards, for whom Edwards Air Force Base as named. With the advent of the jet airplane, the dead-level rock-hard surface of Rogers Dry Lake came into its own.

With 65 square miles within its shores, hard enough to support the weight of any aircraft, the smooth surface of the lake makes a perfect natural landing field. The lake's seclusion makes it acceptable from a security stand point; and conversely, its location on the Santa Fe mainline makes it easily accessible to the Los An geles area aircraft companies. During the past five years, more than 360 test missions have been neces sarily interrupted with emergency landings on the dry lake without mishap. Had these events taken place over more usual terrain, an estimated over $268,000,000 in air craft and equipment would have been lost. The savings in life and time cannot be computed.

WEATHER VITAL The stated mission of the Air Force Flight Test Center to ac complish flight tests and related research and development of air craft, power plants, components and allied equipment also creates the necessity for almost eternally good flying weather. Here again. with an average of 350 flying days from 1946 to December 1947. George AFB was closed in 1945 and again from 1948 to 1950. After the start of the Korean War, the base fell under the Air Defense Command.

The 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing was stationed there and chartered with the responsibility of providing protection for the coastal area. Although the base was under the Air Defense Command, the 116th Fighter Bomber Wing, a Tactical Air Command Unit, was stationed on the base for training prior to duty in Korea. In August 1951 the 31st Fighter-Bomber Wing, a Cali fornia National Guard Unit, was assisgned to the base. They were maze was constructed by the Mohave Indians so that the spirit of their departed ones could elude the many evil spirits on which their beliefs were based, and could escape to their conception of heaven in a race through its paths. The maze, once easily accessible by automobile, has been by-passed by the new approach to the California-Arizona bridge over the Colorado River.

Hikers still make it an objective of their desert rambles. In the spring, desert lilies are profuse in their bloom In the sheltered coves of the mountain which bounds the maze to the south and east. MYSTIC MAZE OBJECTIVE OF HIKERS ENJOYING OUTING Operating a million-dollar busi ness rock salt and calcium chloride at Amboy, 75 miles east of Barstow, the California Salt Co of Los Angeles is the largest rock salt producer in the west. Employing 50 men in the opera tion, the Amboy plant has been un der the control of the California Salt Co. since 1923 but has been turning out calcium chloride since 1908.

one of the oldest plants of its! kind in California. Able to turn out 60 tons of concentrated calcium chloride brine per hour, the plant is situated on Bristol Dry Lake and ships its product mostly to Nevada but also serves other Western states nd makes periodical export shipments to Japan. DUST SETTLER Used in cement, refrigeration, oil products, and as a dust settler, calcium chloride is one of the greatest incentives for moisture known today. Taken from the dry lake bed in liquid form under pressure, the brine is pumped into tank trucks and stored in reservoirs where evaporation takes place leaving a 20 per cent solu-able solid substance. It is then loaded again into trucks and railroad tank cars and snipped to customers.

A flakine plant on the company property also cooks the substance and rolls it into flakes and ships calcium chlo ride in flaked form in moisture- proof bags. Strip mining methods are employed to secure the rock salt from the San Bernardino County area. The earth, or overburden, covering the salt is Stripped away, the salt is drilled, charges placed, and the salt is "shot" or dynamited. DUG BY MACHINE It is then dug out with drag lines and loaded into cars and loaded onto a narrow gauge railway train and hauled to the processing plant live miles away. A 4.

1L. me rennery tne salt is crushed, washed, screened and loaded into open goldola rail cars for shipment to customers. Nevada chemical concerns are the largest users of the rock salt and calcium chloride in their man- utacture of caustic soda and chlorine. lation of over 10,000. And it is an ticipated that this may increase to approximately 20,000 in the next three to five years.

A conservative estimate of total expenditures by aircraft companies and the government, including payrolls, indicates a figure of at least 21 million dollars per year. About 27 per cent of the people killed in U.S. auto accidents are pedestrians. Minerals From Death Valley Go To L.A. Mills Miners in the tradition of the hardy men who have sought and wrested wealth from California desert land for many years are now routing valuable non-metal lie minerals from Death Valley through San Bernardino County to mills of the Kennedy Minerals Co in Los Angeles for processing.

From mines near Tecopa on the San Bernardino-Inyo County line in Death Valley, the Kennedy Minerals Inc. hauls over four thousand tons of ore each month to Yermo where it is placed in Union Pacific boxcars for shipment to Los Angeles. FOUR MINES Operating four mines with a crew of approximately four men each in the Tecopa area, the mining concern works three valu able talc deposits and a bed of bentonite in their desert operations and invests over $100,000 per year in purchases of limestone and py- rophyllite from Victorville opera tors. The talc and bentonite mined by the company are used in paints and allied products as extenders or fillers and are much in demand in those industries. Talc has also found a big play in California ceramic industry where it is mixed evenly with Eastern clays to give the popular hard surface.

VICTORVILLE DEPOSITS Limestone deposits in Victorville furnish the mining concern with material for "whiting" used in putty by paint manufacturers and otner concerns, fyrophyuite, a clay-like material from Victorville, is also purchased for use in paints and other products. The ore is ground into a fine powder at the processing mills in Los Angeles and shipped in 50- pound bags to customers throughout the West and nation to be used in cosmetics, paints, ceramics and rubber products. NEEDLES The Mystic Maze, which lies some 12 miles south of Needles along the bluffs overlooking Topock on the California shore of the Colorado River, has mystified historians since its discovery. It is formed of evenly spaced rows of rocks placed in gently curving lines and has the appearance of an abandoned cornfield laid out for contour planting. Because of the superstition forbidding the mention of the names of their dead, the history of the Mohave Tribe is almost a blank.

It is believed, however, that the From San development of both of these facilities in the future. During World War the south end of the lake was used primarily as a training field. P38, B25 and B24 crews trained at Muroc Army Air Field. Props for this training included a 650-foot realistic model of a Japanese cruiser of the Mogami class, which trainees "bombed" with practice bombs. Pilots and crews from other bases used the life-size model for strafing, identification and skip bombing practice.

The replica became a landmark. But it has been in the last decade that Edwards AFB became the world's greatest flight testing area. In 1946, the Flight Test Base (north end of the lake) and the training base at the south end were merged into a single Flight Test Center with the primary mission of Experimental Flight Test and Engineering for the Air Materiel Command (then known as the Air Technical Service Command). Renamed Edwards Air Force Base in 1950 honoring- test pilot Capt. Glen W.

Edwards, who was killed at Muroc in the crash of a YB49 Flying Wing in 1948, the base became one of six (later increased to nine) Centers in the newly created Air Research and Development Command (ARDC). Since that date, the AFFTC has been sitting in judgment of the efforts of America's aviation industry and other ARDC Centers to produce better aerial weapon systems. It is here that we find out if a weapons system (the total fighting machine, not just an airplane) is functionally developed, and if it meets specifications. On Feb. 18, 1952, Brig.

Gen. (then Colonel) J. S. Holtoner assumed command of the Air Force Flight Test Center. A command pilot, the general's flying background includes all Air Force fighters from the PI to the F100.

In addition, his experience covers the B36, B45. B47, XB51, B52 and B57 bombers; the H21, H23 and H25 helicopters; and the C119, C- 123 and CL24 cargo aircraft. To enable the AFFTC to ac complish its mission better, faster. and more economically, the Ed wards Air Force Base master plan for expansion is already well under way. Its aim: to convert the present wartime hodge-podge of training and test buildings into a more permanent, modern test facility.

A six million dollar run way, Id.uuo feet long and 300 leet wide, is being poured at the rate of 1,400 cubic feet of cement a day. Completion date: December 1954. CONTROL TOWER Also under construction is a new control tower, 134 feet high, believed to be the tallest in the world. It is designed to give air traffic controllers a clear view of, the entire length of the runway and lake bed with no obstructions' high enough to cause "blind" spots. Less publicized is the construe-1 tion of new administration build-, ings, warehouses, barracks and maintenance shops.

most of the physical plant of the; AFFTC will be located north of the new runway. To make the entire lake bed available for emergency landings, the Santa Fe Railroad, which formerly ran diagonal ly across the lake, has been moved to the north of Rogers Dry Lake. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) is constructing a permanent High Speed Flight Research Laboratory (approximately 54,000,000) at the Center. What does this expansion mean? It means that the Air Force Flight Test Center is a permanent feature of the Mojave Desert. Rogers Dry Lake provided the AFFTC with the world's finest natural air field; the completion of the master plan will provide iti with the finest physical plant.

The personnel employed here' are extremely important to both-the AFFTC and the surrounding area. With some 22 civilian air- craft manufacturers at the Center! employing over 1.500 people, and with four governmental agencies employing over 5.000, there is, including dependents, a total popu- UNDER SAC Both wings were under Strategic) Air Command until 1951, at which time Tactical Air Command as sumed command of the base and the wing. Their active duty termi nated in December 1952 when they reverted to California stat con trol. Two other wings were activated to replace them, the 479th and tht 21st Fighter-Bomber Wings. In addition to the two fighter- bomber wings, George Air Fore Base also houses the 4th Tow-Tar get Sq.

and the Air Defense's 94th Fighter-Interceptor Sq. They fly the F86D, all-weather interceptor. Commander of George Air Fore Base is Col. Robert L. Delashaw.

a senior pilot who has served with all three branches of the armed forces, the Army, Navy and Air Force. Col. Delashaw commanded the 405th Fighter-Bomber Wing in Europe during World War II and flew 65 fighter-bomber raids against the enemy. Among his awards and decorations are the French and Belgium Croix De Guerre with palms, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with 11 clusters, the Commendation Medal, and the European Op erations Medal with four battle stars. Mrs.

Freeman Founder Of International Club TRONA From an idea of Mrs. H. T. Freeman that better international relations could be promoted starting from a local level, the International Forum, then known as the International Club, had its birth. President of the local AAUW for 1950, Mrs.

Freeman with others of the University Women, persuaded the group to sponsor and take active part in the initial organization of the International Forum. -vi 'W, HUNTER LOS ANGELES Bernardino County Ifflll The Sign for Excellence QKENCOy mmiur-fMmm mninwimi minim, iiiirtimmlMMsWilltririTrif To the Nation and the Sign for Non-Metallic Minerals for All Industries Including SPECIALIZED TALCS for CERAMICS and PAINTS The Kennedy Minerals Company, was organized in 1939 for the purpose of developing, mining and processing the desert's non-metallic minerals for various industries. Since then, a technical laboratory staff was created to develop further uses for such desert products as Talc and Bentonite from Death Valley, and Limestone and Pyrophyllite from near Victorville. KENNEDY MINERALS Inc. 2330-2 E.

Olympic Los Angeles, ANgelus 1-6168 CALCIUM CHLORIDE ROCK SALT No longsr csn ths dsssrt rs bs csllsd "watts lands," for man has Isarnsd that undarnsath its surface are many things nacassary to tha economy of our nation. CALIFORNIA SALT CO. AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE Crews of maintenance men wash down a giant Convair B-36 at the Air Force Flight Test Center. Used at the Flight Test Center for test support work, the 10-engine bombers must be kept as clean as possible to perform their best. (Official USAF Photo) PLANT AMBOY.

CALIF. OFFICE 2436.