Utah

By John Reardon

Life has a way of surprising you, even if you’ve spent years immersed in the world of Aerospace and Defense. Case in point: I recently bought a house in Virgin, Utah—just a stone’s throw away from a place that played a pivotal role in perfecting ejector seats during the early days of supersonic flight.

After World War II and near the end of the Korean War, the rise of supersonic jets raised a crucial question: How would pilots survive if they were ejected at such high speeds? Enter the testing ground in southern Utah, where the Air Force and Coleman Engineering teamed up to find answers.

In 1953, the U.S. Air Force awarded a $2 million contract to Coleman Engineering in Torrance, California, to build a test facility. They chose a mesa in southern Utah—right near my home—thanks to its mild weather and ideal conditions for year-round testing. Coleman went all in, constructing a 12,000-foot runway, which became the longest rocket sled track in the United States.

The goal? To simulate supersonic speeds by launching a sled at 1,800 mph, then ejecting a test dummy into a 1,500-foot drop into Virgin River Valley below. At the time, Coleman was setting land speed records with a massive 9,400-pound sled that broke the 1,800 mph barrier. These tests helped refine ejection systems and saved countless lives.

The facility’s history is intertwined with major military research centers like Edwards AFB, Wright-Patterson AFB, and Indian Springs AFB. In the early years, the crash-test dummies weren’t sophisticated enough to accurately measure the effects of ejection, so for a short time, monkeys and pigs were used as stand-ins—giving the mesa its nickname: Flying Monkeys Mesa. Today, the facility is still operational, owned by Collins Aerospace (part of RTX), and continues to refine ejector seat technology.

Now, my kids, who are avid mountain bikers, refer to the mesa as Flying Monkey Mesa. It’s a fitting name—given the history of ejecting monkeys, and the fact that every year, the world’s best mountain bikers hurl themselves off the same mesa during the Red Bull Rampage event. Watching these fearless riders launch off the cliffside, it’s almost as if the mesa has come full circle—swapping military test dummies for gravity-defying bikers.

It got me thinking: could the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz have inspired the name of the mesa? Since that movie came out nearly a decade earlier, it seems like an unlikely connection—though it’s possible the iconic flying monkeys had some influence on the nickname we use today.

As the test facility remains off-limits to the public, it’s interesting to see how Red Bull’s marketing has come to overshadow its aviation legacy. Yet, in a way, it’s poetic. Both the early ejection tests and today’s mountain biking stunts share a thrilling, high-speed connection. And as a resident of Virgin, I can’t help but marvel at how a place once used to save lives is now the backdrop for some of the most daring mountain biking feats in the world. It’s a tribute to the history of safety innovation—and a whole lot of adrenaline.