Auction Supports "Gathering of Eagles" Non-Profit
Want to play golf with Burt Rutan and Brian Binnie? EAA has a
way for you to hang out and golf with them during Oshkosh. (People
have time for GOLF during Oshkosh?)
Personally, I never considered a golf course useful for much
more than an emergency landing field. But I understand that a lot
of aviators actually go and beat a little white ball (or a
succession of them) around the course in a waste of a perfectly
good flying day. Two of those flying golfers are Burt Rutan and
Brian Binnie.
In case you just got interested in aviation this week, or are
kind of crummy at remembering names, Burt Rutan is the principle
creator of White Knight and SpaceShip One (as well as over 300
other projects, ranging from the revolutionary Vari-Viggen and EZ
homebuilts to the world-circling Voyager and Global aircraft, to
still-classified military stuff) and head of Scaled Composites and
the Mojave Aerospace Ventures team that won the Ansari X-Prize.
Brian Binnie is a former Naval aviator, a Scaled test pilot and
engineer, and one of a handful of men to fly SpaceShipOne. He's
also one of the two pilots to win the Ansari X-Prize and his
commercial astronaut wings (the other was Mike Melvill).
The golf dates are auctioned to high bidders (hey, they're
trying to raise money here), which means that those of us employed
in aviation might as well give up now. The auction's already
underway (yes, we WERE caught napping) but you still have time to
stick a bid in -- it concludes Friday, the 15th.
The money supports
Gathering of Eagles, which "supports education, historic
preservation, and the inspirational endeavors that prepare youths
of all backgrounds to become innovators, engineers, astronauts,
entrepreneurs, dreamers... the aviation pioneers of tomorrow."
Some of the specific programs Gathering of Eagles supports
include Young Eagles, the EAA Museum, Air Academy aviation camp and
EAA's educational outreach, which aims to "give schools the tools
to increase achievement in math and science using flight."
One package begins early: you travel to Whistling Straits with
Rutan and Binnie for an 8:20 tee time at the Blackwolf Run course.
Then you lunch with the two celebrities (and settle any wagers,
perhaps) and return to the AirVenture grounds. The second package
begins with lunch with Rutan and Binnie and then makes a 3:50 tee
time at the Whistling Straits course.
Will they see you on the links? Well, what's it worth to
you?