PPL flying 2054: the million euro space-burger

[FNG]

Some PPLs went flying yesterday. I was one. This bloke was another, but he went a bit higher than me:-

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/062104-2.htm

http://www.mojavebooks.com/mhv/photos/040621/ss1-040621-58-8.jpg

http://www.netsoc.ucd.ie/~dscully/mrland.wav

As a bonus, this is good news news for the charming FISOs at Elstree, who already assume that they control all Solar System traffic ("G-ZOOM, Remain north of the Rings of Saturn").

[bar shaker]

FNG

It is quite an achiement.

Pprune fly out to Mars?

bs

[Sir George Cayley]

The first civilian in space has not yet made the national news. Contrast this with news from a few years ago when any space story was headline news for days on end.

Burts team has done a fantastic job and I for one was rutan for them despite Starchaser being a British contender and equally worthy.

Tis interesting how Pprune shuns some subjects though in this case a subject where boundaries between disciplines are certainly blurred.

In years to come maybe parallels between the Wrights and others will be drawn from the events in the Mojave Desert today.

Mark the 22nd June 2004 in your diaries you may want to recall it in your dotage.

Be interesting to see if they get it wright and scoop the X Prize

Sir George Cayley

[Flap40]

Have a look at the cockpit shot at http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/photos/images/video/14p_apogee.jpg

Note the Garmin 295 at the top of the panel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FNG]

I agree, Sir George. This feat deserved much greater coverage. When we access pprune via our neural nets/cranial implants, do you think that we will whinge about the landing fees on Mars? Will the traditionalists amongst us say "keep your fancy retinal-head-up-display, I'm sticking with my trusty glass cockpit, like my forefathers"?

[Whirlybird]

Wooooohooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! I think that's great. :ok:

If anyone needs a volunteer for the next space flight, let me know.

[ThePirateKing]

Whirly,

I'm looking for volunteers.

I'm planning to take a club PA28 and strap it to a rubber plant and set light to it (the plant, not the PA28). Apparently rubber is the new environmentally friendly rocket fuel.

Of course, we'll need environmental protection, so I reckon we should nip to Transair and grab some flying suits and leather flying helmets (gold bars optional).

Oh, and portable oxygen.

Also, a GPS for nav. (Have you tried dead reckoning, when you're in sight of the whole surface at Mach 3? Let's hope our transatlantic friends don't enable Selective Availabilty while we're up.

Actually, thinking about it from a touchdown point of view, we might be better off in a Cirrus...

Can we file a flight plan on-line, do you think? And would a grass strip be OK for our, ahem, arrival back on terra firma?

Volunteers apply within... :D

TPK:ok:

[High Wing Drifter]

What I think is fascinating is that next leap in inovation and technology is comming from the small companies now. As the cost has become a bigger and bigger issue due to globalisation, governments find it harder to justify tax money on just simply doing what they did before but bigger and 'better'. The lack of money is, in my opinion, producing some wonderfully elegant solutions. Beagle and SS1 for example. And don't White Knight and SS1 just look like fabulous machines?

[david viewing]

I especially liked the answer given to the question "Who is invited?" on the Scaled website:

Q: Who is invited?
A: Everyone, especially children. They will want to tell their children that they were there to see the event that triggered the industry of private space tourism.

Touching. But trying to convince my 7 year old grandson that this is interesting, let alone important, is hard work. Wish I could have taken him to see the real thing.

[FNG]

Beagle? Elegant? Two dustbin lids strapped to a whoopie cushion and hurled out of a passing spaceship pointed vaguely in the direction of a nearby planet?

I wouldn't mind if they hadn't blown half of the UK space budget for the next ten years (and no one knows what to do with the other £3.50).

[BEagle]

A bit bloody rude......





:\

[FNG]

Don't worry, Mr BEags, we would never chuck you out of a spaceship, as we might need you to tell us how to fly it.