White Knight: August 2009 Archives

Scroll down the menu above to find Flightglobal's videos, all 13 of them, of Virgin Galactic activity at the Experimental Aircraft Association Airventure Oshkosh 2009 air show

credit Flight / caption: This is how WK2's rudder looked earlier this year

In its 23 April statement Scaled Composites said of WK2's development "We concluded the rudder aerodynamic modification tasks following flight 3", which maybe true, and while talking to reporters at Airventure Oshkosh air show on Monday 27 July Scaled's founder and chief engineer Burt Rutan discussed this but there have been further changes to the mothership's tail fin assembly, as can be seen in the pictures in this blog post

The above picture is how Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnight Two's rudder was earlier this year (and this rudder configuration was the same immediately after the June Mojave-Phoenix Mesa Gateway-Las Cruces, New Mexico flights) and below is a cropped picture taken by Hyperbola of the mothership while she sat in Aeroshell square at the Airventure Oshkosh air show on 29 July 2009


credit Flight / caption: the whole bottom of the rudder has been modified with mystery cables to boot 

At 2min 41s in the video above, care of Experimental Aircraft Association, Burt Rutan asks Sir Richard Branson about the prospects for developing an orbital system and Branson gives a cryptic answer

Rutan first spoke of an orbital version of this WhiteKnight, SpaceShipX launch system way back in 2004 when he visited the Royal Aeronautical Society

Thanks to Flightglobal freelancer Jeff Decker for pointing Hyperbola to this video

credit FAA / caption: Babbitt gets a tour of WK2

New US Federal Aviation Administration administrator J. Randolph "Randy" Babbitt got a tour of Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnight Two at EAA Airventure Oshkosh last week. His agency's office of commercial space transportation will have to certify the mothership as a launch platform for SpaceShip Two and award Virgin Galactic its permits for flying its customers to above 100km (62miles) 

credit Flightglobal / caption: Sir Richard Branson is greeted after his demo flight

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch all of Flightglobal's videos of Virgin Galactic activity at the Experimental Aircraft Association Airventure Oshkosh 2009 air show