CRESTVIEW — When the next generation of military weaponry sensors come online in a few years, Bob Sikes Airport aviation experts can know they had a hand in the equipment’s perfection.
Even if they can’t talk much about it, or even reference all of the participants.
For two weeks in May, the skies above and the tarmac below Crestview’s airport were abuzz as pilots, technicians and engineers from defense industry leaders joined local contractors for Eglin Air Force Base’s annual Sensor Week.
That’s the one time of year Eglin opens its ranges to defense contractors for free equipment tests, provided the contractors share their data with the Air Force.
The local general aviation airport was “an ideal place (for the test flights) with this beautiful 8,000-foot runway,” Sunshine Aero Flight Testing owner and pilot Bob Keller said during a recent Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce Airport Committee at Emerald Coast Aviation.
Keller’s company, the charter Crestview Technology Air Park tenant and partner, provided two of its aircraft to test contractors’ sensors, and hosted three other companies’ planes during the test weeks.
“During Sensor Week, we have the facilities to handle confidential equipment,” Keller said.
Because of the program’s popularity in the defense industry, this year’s “week” expanded into two weeks, Keller said. Test flights flew almost constantly, but due to Okaloosa County Airports’ prudent buffer zone management, few residents were aware of the increased activity, he said.
“It was a very busy place,” Keller said. “We flew 24 hours a day. Some flew at night because they had sensors designed for night use.”
Testing had military and civilian aviation applications, Keller said. For example, during one mission, Sunshine Aero’s two-engine King Air plane carried an infrared missile detector pod under its belly.
The equipment could detect terrorist missile launches aimed at commercial airliners, such as the Russian missile investigators determined brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014.
Testing companies included some of the industry’s biggest names, including Lockheed Martin, Dynetics, KEYW Corp., and some that, for security reasons, couldn’t be divulged, Keller said during his presentation.
Keller has been a Bob Sikes Airport tenant since 1980, when, fresh from a career as an Air Force pilot, he started the airport’s fixed-base operator service, a job he held until 2012.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Bob Sikes Airport prime base for equipment test week