Hurricane Mesa Explained

Hurricane Mesa is a Utah landform near Hurricane, Utah, used for Cold War tests of rocket ejection seats for supersonic aircraft at the Hurricane Supersonic Research Site.[1] The mesa is "flat bedrock of faultless Shinarump conglomerate" 1500feet above the Virgin River valley, which allowed clearance for assessment of a longer flight trajectory up from the mesa and over the cliff for the test object (e.g., the anthropoid simulator—dummy—named "Hurricane Sam").

Currently the facility is still used to test military ejection seats for the US and Foreign Govt's.

Notes and References

  1. Spring 1966 . 34 . 2 . Brief Histories of Three Federal Military Installations in Utah: Kearns Army Air Base, Hurricane Mesa, and Green River Test Complex . pdf . Utah State Historical Society . . 2013-09-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131029184532/http://utah.ptfs.com/Data/Library2/publications/rm000475.pdf . 2013-10-29 . dead .