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As we approach the
winter flying weather I want to take a moment to reflect on the great
flying achievements of this year. The most noted was the flights of
"Space Ship One". Burt Rutan and the good old boys from
Scaled Composites pulled off some rare tricks that would have curled the
toes of Kelly Johnson at the old Lockheed skunk works. Burt and his
boys without government help cranked up his weird looking "White
Knight" and strapped "Space Ship One" under the belly and
took off to have a peek into outer space.
The first rocket
powered flight was made on June 21, 2004 with Mike Melville, a 62 year old
(doesn't it give your heart a tug when you read about old boys still doing
their thing) on board as pilot. The ship was released by the
"White Knight" at about 50,000 ft. The rocket was lit and Mike
assumed a climb of 90 degrees (vertical) and accelerated to about mach 2.8
(1400 mph). He topped out at 62 miles and after flipping some
M&M's out in the cockpit he feathered the wings for drag and started
the long flight down. He exceeded mach 3 on the glide home singeing
the special high temp stuff he painted on the leading edge and nose.
He made a smooth flight back to base and touched down making history and
earning a set of astronaut wings.
The second
flight was on Sept. 29th with Mike again at the controls. This time he
cruised up to 337,500 ft. but experienced a series of 26 rolls on the way
up. These were induced by a slight pilot induced input (over control) and
when he tried to stop them with the flight controls he could not because
he was beyond the atmosphere. Once he got engine cutoff he used the flight
control thrusters and immediately stopped rolling.
After a very
smooth landing Burt announced they would try for the ten million
dollar Anseri prize (A prize modeled after the Ortega prize won by
Lindberg in 1927). Two flights had to be made within 14 days using the
same craft carrying the weight equivalent of pilot and two passengers and
land back on earth.
The third flight
was made only 5 days later on Oct. 4th with pilot Brian Binne at the
controls. He let her rip until all the fuel was gone and exceeded 367,000
ft. (69.6 miles). In the process he broke the altitude record of Joe
Walker of 354,000 ft. set back in 1963 in an X-15. The return was pretty
and smooth and he had made history as the pilot of the second civilian
plane into space, breaking many records and winning the 10 million dollar
Anseri prize. I know the old boys at Burt Rutan's skunk works are
licking their chops saying it was a piece of cake and just wait for our
next venture!!
In the meantime
there are Canadian, British, Russian and Romanian teams poised to try the
same thing. I understand the Romanian team lost their first craft in a non
piloted first flight. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
As a result of
the grand effort of 'Space Ship One", there are now companies being
formed to sell rides in space and Burt has a firm order to produce five
more copies of this bird. I can hardly wait for the first home built kit
to hit the market. Van's aircraft and a few others better get busy!! It
will be a while before this happens but in the meantime there are a bunch
of new ARF's out in the Hobby Shops just waiting for us happy go lucky R/C
guys to grab, so keep flying often!!
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