SpaceShip One heads to National Air and Space Museum
Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne will be taking its rightful place this month, hanging between the Bell X-1 and the Spirit of St. Louis and above the Mercury space capsule in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
It will be displayed in an ascent mode, somewhere between vertical and horizontal, to symbolically show that it's both a spacecraft and an aircraft. This section of the museum is called the "Milestones of Flight," celebrating firsts and icons in aviation and space history. The museum's curators were concerned that younger visitors might miss the significance of SpaceShipOne's groundbreaking achievements so they created a new interactive kiosk that features video segments of the flights along with the people behind the effort. The museum became interested in acquiring SpaceShipOne after Mike Melvill's first space flight, on June 21, 2004, and contacted Rutan. Valerie Neal, a space-history curator for the museum, said Rutan and the civilian space program's backer Paul Allen were happy to oblige. Each artifact the museum acquires has to go through a certain amount of paperwork and committee review before it can be displayed.
Compared with some of the other museum artifacts, SpaceShipOne is fairly lightweight and small. To see how it would look in its new spot, the museum used Adobe Photoshop image-editing to show that it would fit without having to move the other vehicles.
SpaceShipOne was delivered to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, slung underneath its launch aircraft, the White Knight. Next was getting the craft ready for display, which meant returning it to its original condition after the first space flight. A fairing buckled from radiant heat coming from the rocket motor's nozzle. On subsequent flights the crew prevented this damage from repeating itself by rebuilding the fairing and adding insulation. To turn back the clock, Rutan said, they removed the insulation and applied heat guns to make it buckle once again. After removing some decals and doing light cleaning, SpaceShipOne was ready for guests.
The main museum in Washington planned to truck the spacecraft over from Dulles, then use a crane on the National Mall to position it during the evening hours. A formal dedication was planned for October 5. Melvill also donated the flight suit he wore on the historic flight.
AOPA Online Survey
Favorite fly-in destinations — East Coast
The majority of the respondents to our latest online survey say they fly more than 200 miles on their long general aviation flights to their favorite East Coast destinations. What are those hot spots?
We learned of some new travel ideas and were reminded of some old favorites (with member comments). Beach locations included Ocracoke Island Airport (W95), Ocracoke, North Carolina — "Beautiful beach over the dunes from the runway"; Provincetown Municipal Airport (PVC), Provincetown, Massachusetts — "As beautiful a view and airport location as you can find"; Grand Strand Airport (CRE), North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK) in Massachusetts; and Flagler County Airport (X47), Bunnell, Florida, where Highjackers Restaurant comes highly recommended. Rural airports were mentioned, such as Sky Acres Airport (44N) in Millbrook, New York, where the terminal is a converted dairy barn, and Grimes Airport (8N1) in Bethel, Pennsylvania, home of the Golden Age Air Museum. For fantastic scenery, respondents mentioned Rough River State Park Airport (2I3), Falls-of-Rough, Kentucky, with its 3,200-foot-long runway beside a 5,000-acre lake, and Finger Lakes Regional Airport (0G7), Seneca Falls, New York, the town that provided inspiration for Frank Capra's movie It's a Wonderful Life.
AOPA Pilot Editor in Chief Thomas B. Haines and a panel of pilots will discuss favorite East Coast destinations at AOPA Expo 2005 in Tampa on November 5. See the latest survey on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/members/).
Howard Hughes gets his beach balls back
Things have a funny way of returning to where they belong, one way or another. Beach balls once belonging to Howard Hughes have been making their way out of people's attics and basements and on to the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, home of the Hughes Flying Boat.
The beach balls were used as flotation when the seaplane, dubbed by the press as the Spruce Goose, made a short, unexpected hop in 1947. To support the test flight, every available beach ball disappeared from the Los Angeles area, and these were later handed out to spectators after the flight. Katherine Huit, the museum's director of collections, said they found tricolor beach balls in the aircraft's floats and there are photographs of other types of beach balls in the tail section. It's not uncommon in the seaplane world to use pingpong balls for flotation on test flights, but the Flying Boat was on a much bigger scale.
When Hughes flew around the world in a land-based Lockheed 14 in 1938, he actually loaded it with pingpong balls in case he went down at sea, Huit said. During a stop in Fairbanks, Alaska, he pushed some of the pingpong balls out of the aircraft and they ultimately fell or, better yet, rolled into the hands of fans.
This fall the museum will celebrate Hughes' 100th birthday with various activities.
FAA looks for hidden information to nab terrorists
In an effort to thwart future terrorists, the FAA is supporting a new Web site search engine that is designed to detect hidden information that can be gleaned from public sites.
Funded by the FAA and the National Science Foundation, researchers at the University at Buffalo are using a technique called Unintended Information Revelation (UIR), which links pieces of information that may seem benign while separate, but together hint at a sinister plan. Traditional search engines find documents based on the number of times a key word appears. UIR uses what are called "concept chain graphs" that can show what's common among two seemingly unconnected things.
To test their prototype, researchers have been using chapters of the 9/11 Commission Report to look for known connections. Researchers are expected to deliver a prototype to the FAA by the end of the year for evaluation.
Cool aviation jobs
There's more to aviation than sitting right seat. Here's a tough — and highly responsible — job for you: installing the solid-fuel-rocket-fired parachute system in Cirrus aircraft.
Name: Kim Larson
Job title: Assembler — Final Assembly
How long in this job: Four years
Special skills required to do this job: Steady hands and methodical follow-through.
What do people say when you tell them what you do: People are very interested in how the parachute is installed, and how it works if it needs to be deployed.
Advice for future parachute installers: Never forget that people rely on your correct installation to save their lives.
How you got this job: I was asked — based on the quality of my work on the assembly line.
Dept. of R&D
Equine science meets aerospace
The horse may seem like the last animal to spark ideas about better ways to build aircraft structures, but a group of University of Florida engineers found something peculiar lurking beneath the hide.
Normally, when you drill a hole in structures for fuel lines and wiring, the site becomes the weak point, so aircraft designers beef up the areas, which only adds weight. It's a different story for horses. The third metacarpus bone in the horse's leg supports a tremendous amount of force as the animal moves. On one side of the bone is a pea-size hole where blood vessels enter. But, as is the case with racehorses, when the bone fractures, it doesn't break at the hole, even under laboratory testing.
After extensive analysis, the engineers concluded the bone is structured in such a way that it pushes the higher stresses away from the hole toward a region of higher strength. Data from the project can be used to design future aircraft structures.
Members in the news
Steve Wood, AOPA 1279482, a British citizen who lives and flies in the United States, flew around the country to raise awareness for an organization that helps people with disabilities discover the joy of flight. He and his GlaStar aircraft, N600FY, (nicknamed Goofy) made a stop at AOPA headquarters in Frederick, Maryland. Wood is promoting a new U.S. arm of Flying Scholarships for the Disabled ( www.toreachforthesky.org), a British charity established more than 20 years ago that has helped more than 200 Britons receive flight training. The scholarships pay for ground instruction and 40 hours of flight instruction. Wood is working with other U.S. sponsors who are in the process of establishing a similar charity in this country. King Hussein of Jordan, an avid pilot, was patron for the British scholarships. His widow, Queen Noor — daughter of one-time AOPA Air Safety Foundation Board of Visitors Chairman Najeeb Halaby — continues in that role.
Ruth Shafer Fleisher, AOPA 355968, John Mahon, AOPA 1000062, and John Coker, AOPA 1274698 received the FAA's Wright Brothers Master Pilot award for more than 50 years of continuous safe flying activity. Fleisher, of Homestead, Florida, had a successful 63-year career as a military test pilot, air traffic controller, and flight instructor. She served as a WASP (Women's Airforce Service Pilot) in World War II. Mahon, of West Palm Beach, Florida, qualified for the award with 11 years to spare. A former Navy torpedo bomber pilot, Mahon also flew freight to South America for a short time. He currently owns a Piper Cherokee 140. Coker, of Cookville, Texas, started flying in a Piper J-3 Cub in 1954. He went on to fly for the Air Force and work as a corporate pilot and flight instructor. Coker has logged 9,800 hours of safe flying.
GA Market Watch
Used-aircraft buyers are looking for pristine high-performance single-engine airplanes with little time on the tachometers. They want good paint, few flaws, and decent radios. Airplanes that fit this description are selling quickly at a $50,000 premium. "Most are not looking for a project. Cessna 172s and 182s (the newer, the better) are moving if priced right. The emphasis continues to be on the simple aircraft — simple to insure and simple to operate," according to the Vref Light Single Index. As for complex aircraft like Beechcraft Bonanzas, Cessna 210s, and Piper Saratogas, avionics are king. Buyers want moving maps and weather data. As the table indicates, light singles have done the best since the economic recovery began in 2003; however, the Cessna 172P remains nearly $10,000 below where it was in 2001, according to Vref. Perform your own aircraft valuations using AOPA's free service on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/members/vref/). Also, see Vref's Web site ( www.vrefpub.com).
A rule of thumb
To calculate your descent rate on a 3-degree glideslope, divide the indicated airspeed by two, then add a zero at the end of the result.
Example: 150 knots divided by two equals 75. Adding a zero gives a descent rate of 750 fpm.
Source: GoodWay flight-planner Web site
What's in the October issue of AOPA Flight Training?
- Can You Hear Me Now? An easy-to-follow troubleshooting guide to keep you from losing radio contact.
- Looking for Lower. Here's a bad-weather scenario that you can practice safely under controlled conditions.
- Know Where You Can't Go. How to recognize and stay clear of prohibited airspace.
The October issue mailed on August 31. Current AOPA members can add a subscription to AOPA Flight Training for $18 per year. For more information, call 800/872-2672.
AOPA ePilot Headlines
Recent news from AOPA's weekly e-mail newsletter
Copter tilts to airplane
Bell Helicopter recently announced that the first civilian tiltrotor, the Bell/Agusta 609, successfully transitioned from helicopter to airplane mode during flight-testing.
A ticket to the moon
Space Adventures, the company that pioneered space tourism by sending two civilians into orbit on government spacecraft, is offering two tickets around the moon for $100 million apiece.
Liberty XL2 good to go IFR
Liberty Aerospace has received IFR certification for its two-seat XL2 single-engine aircraft. The XL2 features full authority digital engine control (FADEC).
GA industry looks up
More and more companies are turning to general aviation for their business travel needs, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Shipments for piston-engine aircraft were up 40 percent.
FAA certifies Diamond diesel twin
Diamond Aircraft has received FAA type certification for its DA42-TDI Twin Star, following similar European certification.
Legend Cub gets FAA nod
The FAA has approved American Legend Aircraft Company's Legend Cub as a special light sport aircraft.
New name, same planes
The Lancair Co. has changed its name to Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp. to alleviate confusion between the homebuilt and certified-aircraft companies.
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