AEDC White Oak tours offer rare look at Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9

AEDC White Oak Site Director Dan Marren talks about Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 and AEDC with stakeholders from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Ground Test Technical Committee during a site visit. GTTC guests, in town for the Aviation 2016 Forum in Washington, D.C., were invited to tour AEDC White Oak in Silver Spring, Md. (U.S. Air Force photo/Robert W. Mitchell)

AEDC White Oak tours offer rare look at Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9

Published July 19, 2016
By Robert Mitchell
Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9

ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. -- A tight work schedule did not keep the dedicated professionals on the leading of edge of science and technology at AEDC White Oak from recent opportunities to share some of their work with the outside world.

In two separate tours held within days of each other, the staff at AEDC Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 came together to give invited guests a historical presentation, a site walk around, a tunnel visit, light refreshments and souvenirs.

Members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Ground Test Technical Committee and families of the AEDC White Oak staff learned about the AEDC mission, and had the rare opportunity for a behind-scenes look at one of the most unique test facilities in the world.
Dan Marren, Tunnel 9 site director, who briefed site visitors at the start of the tour, recalled that as a young engineer working for the Navy, he was not allowed to discuss his work with his family. In fact, he told family members at the briefing that his own family once thought he flew the space shuttle and found it coincidental that he was often unavailable whenever the space shuttle was in orbit.

Indeed that spin worked to his OPSEC advantage back then, but with the family tour, he wanted AEDC White Oak families to see how critically important their own family members are to a very significant and pretty cool mission.

The technical GTTC tour, geared toward industry stakeholders, was vastly different from the family-oriented tour which focused more on general information, Marren noted.

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