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White Knight made its first flight on August 1, 2002 – while designed as the mothership to carry SpaceShipOne, after the completion of the spaceflights and delivery of the little spaceship to the Smithsonian, White Knight was repurposed as a multi-mission platform carrying a variety of payloads. Today, White Knight lives at the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum.   Learn more about White Knight at https://lnkd.in/gGJ7FMGB   #FirstFlightFridays #FlightTest #SpaceShipOne #mothership

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Brandon Wood

VP, Manufacturing at Stratolaunch, LLC

2mo

I fondly remember Mike Melville calling it "THE White Knight", with his South African accent. Somewhere along the way, people starting calling it White Knight One, but that was never it's name. It is such a unique aircraft: 2 fixed gear, 2 retractable gear, 2 afterburners, bank vault forward hatch, so much more. I feel very privileged to have flown in it with a great set of pilots and crew. I especially appreciated it's ability climb and descend very quickly.

Doug Shane

Anduril Industries

2mo

Really a fun jet. Leave it to Burt to give us a twin afterburning jet with a Vmo of 160…

I saw Mike Melvill present a video of his test flight of SpaceShipOne at a dinner at WPAFB - held in museum. He proved his exit and re-entry of the atmosphere by opening a bag of M&Ms. In the video, you see the M&Ms floating and then hitting the floor of vehicle on re-entry.

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Wayne Avellanet

Inventor of the Magnecopter™ (Patent Pending)

2mo

Looking forward 20 years in the future, I hope we'll be retiring the first examples of the Magnecopter.com

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