Delamar Lake Landing Strip

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Delamar Dry Lake

Coordinates: 37°19′N 114°56′W / 37.32, -114.94 Delamar Lake Landing Strip was designated as an emergency landing site for the X-15 on a dry lake bed located near Alamo in Lincoln County, Nevada, USA. The airfield was also known as Delamar Landing Field. No structures were built there. The lake bed remains but is not officially considered an airport.

1 Facilities
2 History
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Facilities

Delamar was listed as having one runway:

Runway 15,000 feet, Surface: unpaved dry lakebed^[1]

However, on a dry lake bed an aircraft may actually land in any direction.

[edit] History

The airfield was established in 1943. Delamar Lake Landing Strip was one of the designated emergency landing sites for the X-15 because it was underneath the Delamar Dry Lake Drop Zone where the X-15s would be drop-launched from the B-52 for high altitude and space flights.

On May 21, 1962, X-15 pilot Neil Armstrong (later a Gemini and Apollo astronaut) flew an F-104 to Delamar Dry Lake in case it would be needed for an upcoming X-15 flight. The F-104 was damaged in the landing attempt at Delamar when the landing gear began to retract. Armstrong got the plane back in the air and diverted to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas.

During Flight 1-63-104 on May 6, 1966, an X-15 experienced an engine failure and landed at Delamar Dry Lake.^[2]^[3]

An eyewitness report regarding the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster came from a camper who was at Delamar Dry Lake on the morning of Feb 1, 2003. The eyewitness saw the space shuttle cross the pre-dawn sky, as well as a bright flash in the contrail. Minutes later, the camper saw two "twinkles" descend into mountains perceived to be nearby. NASA considered this report credible enough to analyze radar data and send a ground search crew to the area to look for debris. None was found.^[4]