The Tonopah Range Airport first opened in 1957, supporting operations on the test range itself, which was used for
United States Atomic Energy Commission funded nuclear weapon programs. The earliest known depiction of the airfield was on the July 1970 Air Force Tactical Pilotage Chart. The 1982
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Airport Directory described the Tonopah Test Range airfield as having a single paved runway. The MiG-21 posed a major threat to Israeli Air Defenses as well as to American pilots, so the US loaned a MiG-21 that Israel had
acquired, and evaluated it in a series of test flights known as
Have Doughnut. A similar program was carried out with MiG-17s under the codes
Have Drill and
Have Ferry. By June 1969, the results of the evaluations of the MiG-21 and MiG-17s were incorporated into the
USAF Fighter Weapons School and the Navy
TOPGUN training school, and
aggressor squadrons were formed there to train pilots in mock dogfights. In May 1973, Project
Have Idea was initiated for joint technical and tactical evaluation of Soviet aircraft types, and took over the older
Have Doughnut, Have Drill, and
Have Ferry projects. It was undertaken by Detachment 1,
57th Fighter Weapons Wing. In the summer of 1979, Tonopah Test Range Airport was selected to be the home of the Tactical Air Command
4450th Tactical Group (4450th TG). The mission of the 4450th at Tonopah was to bring the classified F-117A Stealth Fighter to an initial operating capability. Beginning in October 1979 Tonopah Test Range Airport was reconstructed and expanded. The base was immediately staffed with US Air Force security police. The flight line was walled off with a double fence; the only access to the runway was through gates. The area between the fences was lighted at night and had intruder detectors. At first, the facilities were limited to a few buildings, a small mess hall, and sixteen winterized trailers. During the operational lifetime of the F-117 personnel from Tonopah and later
Holloman AFB would still be temporarily deployed to Groom Lake for various checkout flights of classified elements of the aircraft. The F-117 project was highly classified and Tonopah Test Range became a
black project facility. As such, the area around Tonopah was closely monitored and security was stringent. If a truck was seen in the hills around the base it would be investigated, as were airplanes flying near the base's restricted airspace. Air Force members were prohibited from driving into the town of Tonopah without special permission. Personnel crossing into the double-fence area housing the hangars and flightline were required to pass through a security control point. The control point used an Identimat
hand geometry scanner provided by
Wackenhut, the company that provided perimeter security on the TTR. The F-117 operations building was a windowless vault. Within the building was another vault room where the flight manuals were stored. When in use, the manuals had to be in the pilot's physical possession. The Summer of 1990 was the peak of Air Force activity at the Tonopah Test Range Airport. After the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait the base was mobilized to support
Operation Desert Shield. On August 19, 1990, 22 F-117A's from the 415th and a dozen tankers left Tonopah for
Langley AFB. A total of 18 F-117s would continue onward to
Khamis Mushait Air Base in
Saudi Arabia for
Operation DESERT SHIELD, followed by hundreds of Tonopah support personnel. The planes, and a contingent of Tonopah Test Range personnel, remained in Saudi Arabia until late 1991. As a result of the deployment and the pending relocation to New Mexico, flying operations and staffing at the TTR declined significantly during 1991. Some of the support facilities which had been open 24 hours a day, such as the dining halls and library, began routinely closing at night. == Role and operations ==