CALSPAN Bicycle Works at Mojave Airport/Spaceport was honored as the Business of the Month by the Mojave Chamber of Commerce last Thursday.
Calspan Bicycle Works honored by Mojave chamber
Mojave Desert News - 09/03/2009
By Bill Deaver
MOJAVE —
A company whose name recalls the innovative beginnings of aviation was honored as
 Chamber President Rheta Baldwin presented a plaque honoring the company to its president, Paul Nafziger in front of his own airplane and with one of the company's F-16 Fighting Falcons in the background. BILL DEAVER/Desert News |
"Business of the Month" by the Mojave Chamber of Commerce last week.
Calspan Bicycle Works at Mojave Airport/Spaceport and its president, aerospace veteran Paul Nafziger, were honored for their contribution to the local aerospace industry.
Nafziger, a graduate of the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, is a retired Air Force colonel who headed BAE Flight Systems operations at Mojave before helping to form the Bicycle Works, named for the shop where the Wright Brothers changed the world.
The company performs flight test and training operations for the Navy and Air Force, and is currently using five leased USAF F-16 fighters in its efforts, Nafziger told chamber members and guests.
He said the airplanes have been working with Navy Aegis cruisers from Point Mugu.
Nafziger said the planes help the ships test their electronic countermeasures by firing ballistic missiles which the ships' crews detect and shoot down.
He said the company is also working to obtain additional contracts.
"The future looks bright," Nafziger said, attributing the company's success to the "pioneering and entrepreneurial attitude of the East Kern Airport District."
About Calspan
Conceived in 1940, Calspan was founded in 1943 as part of the Research Laboratory of the Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division at Buffalo, N.Y. It operated as the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory from 1946 until 1972 when Cornell University sold public stock in the lab and set it up as the Calspan Corporation. Calspan was the first in a series of corporate owners that have included Arvin Industries, Space Industries International, Veridian Corporation and General Dynamics.
Over the years, much of Calspan's work has included closely guarded industrial research and highly classified military work, some of it "Top Secret," such as the development of military aircraft, systems and weapons; strategic defense initiatives; FBI finger-printing systems; and countermeasures to chemical and electromagnetic warfare and terrorist attacks.