CHINALAKERANGESThe Land Ranges are located at the
China Lake Complex in California’s
upper Mojave Desert on more than
1.1 million acres of land. They sit under
the R-2508 airspace complex, which
includes an additional 1,700 square
miles of restricted military operating
areas. Airspace is available for air-to-
air and air-to-surface weapons and
weapons systems test and evaluation as
well as training and tactics development.
Air-to-air weapons fall primarily
into the short-range category with
medium- and long-range missiles (up
to 20nm) tested under restricted launch
conditions. Operational environments
include high-altitude to low-altitude,
subsonic to supersonic, day or night
live- re capability, and high-ground
clutter backgrounds. Head-on, tail-on,
look-down and crossing angle rings are
typical scenarios.Air-to-surface weapons include short-
to long-range missiles, conventional
freefall weapons, guns and rockets.
Missile launch scenarios involve ranges
greater than 50nm and altitudes above
30,000ft to ranges less than 10nm and
altitudes below 500ft.
Ground targets span the spectrum
from simple bullseye targets to remotely
controlled tanks, dune buggies and other
vehicles. Simulated missile sites, railroads,
airstrips and tunnels are available along
with one of the US Department
of Defense’s most complete arrays of
radio frequency (RF) targets for anti-
radiation missile (ARM) development and
live- re testing.Above: Wearing
the smart new
markings that
are carried on
some VX-9 jets,
an AMRAAM-
toting F/A-18C
darts between
the desert
hilltops. Kedar
Karmarkar
Inset above:
Under the
protection of a
sun shelter, LTs
Noronha and
Hirzel run through
pre-start checks.
Kedar Karmarkar
Above right:
The R-2508
range complex
surrounding
China Lake
provides a perfect
proving ground
for many new
capabilities for
the Super Hornet.
US DoDeach other almost all our career in the
navy. We came down here to see what
goes on in operational test and found
it impressive. The whole base is full of
smart people. The number of things
you can learn from them is absolutely
endless. You are able to play with and
break the new toys and say, ‘this doesn’t
work, we need to x this, or we need
to ask for this enhancement in the next
release’, so it’s rewarding and the e ect
you have on the eet is tremendous.’
Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank
LTs Dan Wood, Sean Noronha and Jason Hirzel for
their assistance with this feature.http://www.combataircraft.net // October 2018 81