A NASA F/A-18 is towed to the apron at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California during sunrise over Rogers Dry Lake. The F/A-18 was used to test a transmitter for an air navigation system, called the Airborne Location Integrating Geospatial Navigation System, or ALIGNS. This system, designed to allow pilots to position their aircraft at precise distances to each other, will be critical for acoustic validation efforts of NASA’s next supersonic X-plane, the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology.

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Photo credit: © NASA/piemags / Alamy / Afripics
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Keywords: -59, -18, /-18, aeronautics, afrc, air, aligns, armd, armstrong, aviation, base, boom, center, edwards, fdc, flight, force, jet, nasa, pilots, quesst, research, schamroq, sonic, supersonic, test