Delamar Dry Lake facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Delamar Lake Landing Strip
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| Coordinates | 37°19′13.87″N 114°56′55.03″W / 37.3205194°N 114.9486194°W | ||||||||||
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 Delamar Lake Landing Strip
Location in Nevada
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Delamar Dry Lake is a large, flat area of dry land in Lincoln County, Nevada. It is near a town called Alamo. This land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which is a part of the U.S. government.
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Delamar Lake Landing Strip
The Delamar Lake Landing Strip was created in 1943. It was used as an emergency landing spot for the X-15 rocket plane. No buildings were ever built there. The dry lake bed is still there, but it is no longer kept up as an airport.
Delamar was listed as having one main landing area:
- A runway that was 15,000 feet long.
- Its surface was just the unpaved, dry lake bed.
However, on a dry lake bed, planes can land in almost any direction.
History of Delamar Dry Lake
The Delamar Lake Landing Strip was very important for the X-15 program. It was directly under the Delamar Dry Lake Drop Zone. This was the area where the X-15 planes were dropped from a B-52 bomber. This allowed the X-15 to start its high-altitude and space flights.
Neil Armstrong's Landing Incident
On May 21, 1962, Neil Armstrong was an X-15 pilot. He later became a famous Gemini and Apollo astronaut. Armstrong flew a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter jet to Delamar Dry Lake. He was checking it out for a future X-15 flight.
During his landing attempt, the jet's landing gear started to fold up. The plane was damaged. Armstrong quickly got the plane back into the air. He then flew it to Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas for a safe landing.
X-15 Emergency Landing
On May 6, 1966, an X-15 rocket plane had an engine problem during a flight. The pilot had to make an emergency landing. They safely landed the X-15 at Delamar Dry Lake.
"Texas Lake"
The U.S. Air Force now sometimes calls Delamar Dry Lake Bed "Texas Lake." This is because it looks like the shape of the state of Texas when seen from high above.
Space Shuttle Observation
On February 1, 2003, a person camping at Delamar Dry Lake saw something unusual. They saw the Space Shuttle Columbia flying across the sky before dawn. They also saw a bright flash in its trail. A few minutes later, they saw two bright "twinkles" falling into the mountains nearby. NASA thought this report was important. They checked radar data and sent a team to search the area for debris. However, no debris was found.
Message to Space
In January 2015, a large team from Hyundai Motor Company did something amazing. They drove several cars with special tires across Delamar Dry Lake. They created a huge message on the ground. This message was so big it could be seen from the International Space Station!
The message said, "Steph ♥s you!" It was sent by a 13-year-old girl to her father, an astronaut on the space station. This project helped promote a new car model. This huge tire track message earned a Guinness World Record for being the "Largest Tire Track."
