Virgin Galactic Pilot Peter Siebold Released From The Hospital | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-05.13.24

Airborne-NextGen-05.07.24

Airborne-Unlimited-05.08.24 Airborne-FlightTraining-05.09.24

Airborne-Unlimited-05.10.24

Thu, Nov 06, 2014

Virgin Galactic Pilot Peter Siebold Released From The Hospital

Freefall Was From More Than 50,000 Feet With No Pressure Suit

Virgin Galactic pilot Peter Siebold was wearing a parachute, but no pressure suit, when SpaceShipTwo began to come apart during a test flight last Friday. NTSB Spokesman Eric Weiss said Tuesday "we don't know how he got out."

Siebold was released from the hospital Monday, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.

According to the report, Siebold survived a freefall from more than 10 miles in altitude in temperatures reaching 70 degrees below zero.

It is not known when Siebold actually deployed his parachute. Avionics engineer Ken Brown, who was photographing the event, said he believes the spacecraft was as high as 60,000 feet when it began to disintegrate. Brown said Siebold may have made a decision to freefall as far possible to quickly exit the very cold temperatures at that altitude, and may not have opened the parachute until he reached about 20,000 feet.

The design of SpaceShipTwo prevented the use of bulky pressure suits. Designer Burt Rutan said that he wanted small hatches to preserve the strength of the pressure vessel of the composite-construction spacecraft, according to veteran test pilot Paul Tackabury, who sat on the board of directors of Scaled Composites until it was sold to Northrop Grumman. Pilots wear thin jumpsuits when flying the spacecraft.

Tackabury said that Siebold's survival is extraordinary. "You don't just jump out of an aircraft at Mach 1 at over 50,000 feet without a space suit," he told the paper.

FMI: www.scaled.com, www.ntsb.gov

Advertisement

More News

Sierra Space Repositions Dream Chaser for First Mission

With Testing Soon Complete, Launch Preparations Begin in Earnest Sierra Space's Dream Chaser has been put through the wringer at NASA's Glenn Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio, but w>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (05.10.24): Takeoff Roll

Takeoff Roll The process whereby an aircraft is aligned with the runway centerline and the aircraft is moving with the intent to take off. For helicopters, this pertains to the act>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (05.10.24)

“We’re proud of the hard work that went into receiving this validation, and it will be a welcome relief to our customers in the European Union. We couldn’t be mor>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (05.11.24)

"Aircraft Spruce is pleased to announce the acquisition of the parts distribution operations of Wag-Aero. Wag-Aero was founded in the 1960’s by Dick and Bobbie Wagner in the >[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (05.11.24): IDENT Feature

IDENT Feature The special feature in the Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System (ATCRBS) equipment. It is used to immediately distinguish one displayed beacon target from other be>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2024 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC