Flight Nest: Planes, Aviation Industry, Stories about Flight

Black Sky - Winning the X-Prize

by Mr. Flight on February 16th, 2006

Unless you are new to this site you will know I’m a huge fan of Burt Rutan and his aircraft designs. Tonight on the Discovery Channel (at least in my area) there will be a documentary called “Black Sky, Winning the X-Prize”. (check schedule)

The show will focus on Burt Rutan and SpaceSchipOne in their attempt (and success) at winning the Ansari X-Prize and $10 million. SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to carry someone into space twice in two weeks.

I’ve wasted lots of good work time over the past few days flying SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnight in X-Plane. I’ve got WhiteKnight setup as the “drop” plane in X-Plane then getting in SpaceShipOne. Dropped from 47,000 feet I’ve been able to make it up to about 250,000 feet, but not quite to the altitude required for the X-Prize attempt. I’ll keep trying though!

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POSTED IN: Simulators, Space Technology, aviation