Alone Together Chapter 14
| Alone Together | |
|---|---|
| Chapter 14 of 18 | |
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| Read this chapter | |
| Time frame | October 1999 |
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Location
- Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake, near Ridgecrest, California
Characters
- Phil Ricketts, Captain USAF
- Lt Ayres, Range Safety Officer
- Mike Hanneman, pilot for Jennlynn's Skyhook Aviation and retired Air Force general
Summary
After a successful test with a small unit, they take a larger test unit to the US Navy testing ground at China Lake. Captain Ricketts is at pains to point out that it is no longer a Navy project as it had been cancelled. The test is a great success, at which point Capt Ricketts tries to claim that it is a Navy project once more.
Stan decides to stay and talk things through with the Navy while Jennlynn flies Jon and Tanisha and the prototype back to Lambdatron in Tempe.
Real World Notes
(If there is ever a NAWS-China Lake page created this info can be moved to there)
The Naval Air Weapons Station is a real organization with two locations. One is located in the Mojave Desert of California at China Lake (a dry lake bed), near the town of Ridgecrest. The other half of NAWS is located at Point Mugu, on the California coastline north of Los Angeles and south of Santa Barbara.
The reason for the paired naming is purely political, it used to be two separate military bases, but the politics were that the military needed to "close" some bases. Since Point Mugu and China Lake were both doing weapons research on the same projects they ended up creating the Naval Air Weapons Station orgnaization, and then placing China Lake and Point Mugu as the the two campuses of of one operation. When all was said and done thay had one fewer "bases" on the roster. It was all politics. Later the name was changed to the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, at China Lake, CA.
The web site for NAWS is here: http://www.navair.navy.mil/nawcwd.
The web site for the China Lake facility is here: www.cnic.navy.mil/chinalake
The wikipedia page for the China Lake facility is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Weapons_Station_China_Lake
There is some historical info here: http://www.militarymuseum.org/NAFInyokern.html
