Mike Melville's First Sub-Orbital Flight Made History in 2004

One of the most startling and indelible of our many aero-memories is five years old today. It involves a point nearly ten miles high, chasing the first of Burt Rutan's space-proven rocketships, and the dawning of a new age that has followed since.

The FAA has developed new procedures to reduce delays at Denver International Airport during major runway construction work.

Members of the 413th Flight Test Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Fla., and contractor Boeing recently successfully fired the high-power laser aboard the Advanced Tactical Laser aircraft for the first time in flight.

AIA Stumps For NASA

NASA stands front and center as the most visible representation of the U.S. space program and is critical to our country's future leadership and competitiveness, according to AIA Vice President of Space Systems, J.P. Stevens.

Minnesota Puts Videos Of Reliever Airports On YouTube

We suppose it had to happen. If you're flying into the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, and are looking for a place to land, now you can include YouTube as part of your flight planning.

'Forces Closure of Busy Airspace; Raleigh Traffic Most Affected' 

NATCA is spoiling for a fight... again -- this time over their claim that the FAA, on Friday evening, was forced to close several air corridors above eastern North Carolina for 30 minutes as a desperation move to avoid a serious safety risk when 'its poor management and woeful staffing reached this breaking point' at Washington Center.

Aero-Linx: Scaled Composites Scaled Composites, LLC is an aerospace and specialty composites development company located in Mojave, California (about 80 miles north of Los Angeles). Founded in 1982 by Burt Rutan, Scaled has broad experience in air vehicle design, tooling, manufacturing, specialty composite structure design, analysis, fabrication and developmental flight test.

Flight Data Recorder (FDR) Records pertinent technical information about a flight. An FDR will record information about the performance of various aircraft systems, as well as the aircraft's speed, altitude, heading and other flight parameters.

"Cheered down the runway by onlookers, the White Knight turbojet launch aircraft took off at 647 a.m. PST, carrying SpaceShipOne under its fuselage to an altitude of 47,000 feet. At 750 a.m. PST, flight engineer Matt Stinemetz released the spaceship and test pilot Mike Melville immediately fired the hybrid rocket motor. The rocket burn lasted for 76 seconds rocketing the vehicle to more than 2.9 Mach or 2150 miles an hour. At motor burn out, SpaceShipOne was at 180,000 feet and from there coasted the rest of the way into space reaching an apogee of 328,491 feet... Source: From the June 21st, 2004 Mission Summary of the First Sub-Orbital Flight of SpaceShipOne -- five years ago today.

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