Gold mine in Tullahoma: Arnold Engineeringpumps millions of dollars into local economy
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In an effort to increase that awareness, AEDC officials invited a group of local businessmen, government officials and media representatives to tour the facility earlier this week.
According to AEDC Commander Col. David Eichhorn, the base has a significant economic impact on its neighbors.
“We tend to think of it as the economic engine of Middle Tennessee,” Eichhorn said. “You have 64 people up in Warren County who work here. I think we’re talking $4.5 million that flows up that way. We’ve got Porter Roofing and Harper Construction that are both from Warren County that are doing work on the base.
“You also have about 250 military retirees up there. Another $5.5 million flows into Warren County because of the retirees,” Eichhorn continued. “Like some former commanders, they get a taste of Middle Tennessee and they never go away. You also have about 64 civilian retirees who live up there for about another million that flows into the county. So I think you can see there’s a big economic engine in Arnold Air Force Base.”
Eichhorn said Arnold has always been at the forefront of aeronautics testing, even from its beginnings in the early ’50s. Today, it is a state-of-the-art facility, providing innovations in testing for both military and commercial aviation.
“The things you see at Arnold today, you’ll see out in common practice and use in 10 years,” Eichhorn said, “like the joint strike fighter. Lockheed-Martin has the contract. It’s about the biggest airplane buy ever, some 3,000 airplanes. I think there are up to 17 different countries that are all buying this airplane. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, everybody’s buying this. When Lockheed got the contract, within two weeks they were on our doorstep and testing in our wind tunnels.”
AEDC provides a wide variety of tests for its customers, including testing the aerodynamic shape of airplanes, bomb drop characteristics to ensure a load, once dropped, won’t impact the aircraft, and inlet distortion on the engines to make sure they run properly under adverse conditions.
There’s also the famous “chicken gun,” which was once used to test how well canopies and windshields would withstand the impact of birds at low flying levels. Arnold pioneered this device and it is still on the base, but is rarely used anymore since most companies have begun building their own setups for impact testing.
After Col. Eichhorn’s talk, the group was treated to an informative tour of the AEDC’s huge wind tunnels and testing facilities. Taking the tour were Warren County’s director of economic development Don Rigsby, Chamber of Commerce community projects manager Cindy Rogers, plant manager of Sunbeam/Oster Greg Sweeton, Chamber Economic Development Committee chairman Ben Vaughn, plant manager of Bridgestone Dennis Riggenberg, general manager of Caney Fork Electric Hubert King, and Caney Fork’s director of customer service Terry Mullican.
“I thought it was very interesting,” said King. “It was very educational. I didn’t really know that much about AEDC or what they actually did. I didn’t realize there are so many different things they test at the facility.”
King was also impressed with the economic benefits.
“It’s an asset and a lot of people in Warren county don’t realize it adds to the economy of Warren County as greatly as it does,” he said.
Ben Vaughn agreed.
“I thought it was very enlightening and it made me more aware of a tremendous asset that we have in Middle Tennessee. I was most impressed with their hospitable attitude,” Vaughn said.
The facility gives tours to organizations or groups who are interested in learning more about AEDC. Anyone interested in setting up a tour should contact Kathy Gattis at 931-454-7723 or Claude S. Morse at 931-454-5655.