Hurricane Mesa

This article is about a landform in Utah. For the mountain in Wyoming, see Hurricane Mesa (Wyoming).

Hurricane Mesa (37°14′25″N 113°12′41″W^[1]) 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.^[3] The mesa is "flat bedrock of faultless Shinarump conglomerate" 1,500 ft (460 m) 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").

Aerial photo of part of Hurricane Mesa supersonic test track

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

References

1. "Hurricane Mesa (1428953)". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
2. "Hurricane Mesa (1428953)". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
3. "Brief Histories of Three Federal Military Installations in Utah: Kearns Army Air Base, Hurricane Mesa, and Green River Test Complex" (PDF). Utah Historical Quarterly. 34 (2). Utah State Historical Society. Spring 1966. Archived from the original (pdf) on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 2013-09-12.