Sycamore Canyon Test Facility, California

A rocket and weapons field test site east of San Diego, portions of which have been referred to as Camp Elliot by the Navy. The operational areas are mostly in the canyons in the otherwise open and undeveloped hills, south of Poway and east of the Miramar Naval Air Station. A number of weapons contractors have had assets at this site over the years. Lockheed Martin referred to its facilities here as the Sycamore Test Facility (STF), an eight-acre test site established by the company in 1964, which was used for liquid hydrogen and other types of cryogenic and structure testing programs. Hughes operated its "Site 7" here, where, amongst other things, Tomahawk missiles were assembled. This division of Hughes was later purchased by Raytheon. Commercial use of the facilities here seems to have originated in the 1950's, when the Convair division of General Dynamics used a portion of the area as a captive missile test site for the Atlas ICBM program. A radar-cross section facility was located here at "Site A," for some time as well, and has since been moved to Tucson by Raytheon. Only a few test structures remain.