A "visit" to Lockheed's Helendale facility in California (1993)....by Norio Hayakawa

Norio Hayakawa at: http://noriohayakawa.wordpress.com/ab...
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An "impromptu" visit to a remote test site in Southern California.
This was taken in 1993.
There were about 5 remote RCS (radar cross section) test sites in and around Antelope Valley in Southern California. This one was operated by Lockheed and was located just outside of a small community called Helendale.

Some of the other remote sites in the Antelope Valley area also include Northrop Grumman's site (south of the Tehachapi slope) and Boeing (former McDonnell Douglas) located in Llano, not too far from El Mirage Dry Lake.
The RCS sites were built to test the radar reflections of various shapes of aircraft and were quite important in further determining the efficiencies of ongoing stealth technologies. (There are some people who suspect that there are other more "secret" stuff going on at these sites).

While we were standing by the fence, a security truck came suddenly. (Probably they were Wackenhut security, employed by Lockheed).
The security person immediately called the main building and soon a blue van arrived. There seemed to be about 4 persons inside the van. A lady inside then started taking a photo of us right there.

We left that area and then drove to the main gate area.
The gate sign did indicate that there were toxic chemical substances in that area.
We then decided to depart from the area.
We were then followed by a white truck for quite a distance.
It was an interesting experience.
This was in 1993.

The next day we decided to fly over the facility. At that time that area was not under restricted airspace. From the small airplane we could see Edwards AFB in the distance. We could also see Haystack Butte, which is an artificial hill (hollowed out) inside Edwards AFB. The airspace there, of course, is restricted.