Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
The Forde Files No 154
Left, test pilot Mike Melvill answers the question "Why do things float in space?" from Ryan Rowe at the Tehachapi Society of Pilots Celebration of Flight, Sept. 9. Center, Ryan's mom Cathy Rowe. Pilots took 70 youths on more than 80 flights in various private airplanes.
It was "impromptu exuberance" that prompted Scaled Composites test pilot Mike Melvill to roll SpaceShipOne as it glided back to earth on Sept. 29, 2004 to claim the $10 million Xprize for the first privately funded suborbital spaceflight. On the way up, the vertical ship had rolled uncontrollably 29 times, beginning at 160,000 feet. "Engineer Jim Tigh predicted it [the rolls] would happen," Melville, 76, told Forde Files after he spoke at the Tehachapi Society of Pilots Celebration of Flight Sept. 9 at the Municipal Airport. "He told Burt (designer Rutan) if it went to negative G, it would depart from controlled flight." Melvill brought the craft under control and continued the ascent to win the prize. In his presentation, he recounted tales of his test flights during 27 of the 32 years he worked with Rutan.
His favorite – Test pilot Mike Melvill said at the Tehachapi Society of Pilots event that “the Proteus is my favorite airplane of all time.” Burt Rutan designed the tandem-wing, dragonfly-like vehicle for NASA as a high-altitude, long-duration telecommunications relay platform, and it was pressed into service for environmental studies. Melvill and his co-pilot flew the Proteus to the North Pole once, circling the pole down to 200 feet and circling up again through their own contrail. Melvill said the concept of the SpaceShipOne and its mothership White Knight was to carry the space ship to 48,000 feet, drop it off White Knight and ignite the rocket to boost it into space (64 miles high, 103 kilometers) – “That was the plan and it actually worked,” he said. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen spent $26 million to develop the vehicles, and Virgin founder Richard Branson stepped in at the end of the process to provide flight funding (and gained the signage on the fuselages). “He (Allen) spent $26 million to get $10 million. He gave $5 million to Scaled and kept $5 million. We got nice bonuses that year.” Rutan’s personal airplane was the asymetric Boomerang. It had two mis-matched engines and the props were not lined up. Melvill: “The best flying multi-engine I’ve ever flown.”
