AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2013 - 66

Melvill, then 63, goes through his final
checklist items and removes the safety wire
from the rocket motor arming switches as
he prepares to fly into space. He’s practiced
this sequence of events thousands of times,
but on June 21, 2004, it’s for real.
At 7:50 a.m., SpaceShipOne is released
from the pylon that’s held it in place during its long ride to altitude, and as it falls,
Melvill arms and then fires the rocket
motor, which contains two fuels: 600
pounds of rubber and 3,020 pounds of liquefied nitrous oxide. It takes less than two
seconds for the rocket motor to fire—but to
Melvill, the wait seems far longer.

experimental avionics that show the aircraft’s attitude, and Melvill handles the craft
with the firmness and precision honed during three decades of flight tests on a wide
range of unique aircraft ranging from a longwinged, glider-like drone to jets.
But just a few seconds into the fastascending flight, SpaceShipOne encounters
a powerful wind shear in the upper levels
of the atmosphere and the aircraft suddenly rolls 90 degrees to the right. Melvill
counters with left rudder and left stick,
but at the nearly supersonic speed the
aircraft is now traveling, the controls are
almost too stiff for the wiry former machin-

he’s traveling Mach 2.9 and 2,150 miles per
hour—and rising almost vertically.
SpaceShipOne reaches the top of its arc
at 328,491 feet, or more than 100 kilometers
above Earth. Melvill is weightless for three
and a half minutes, and surveys the world
through the many round windows in the
aircraft’s nose. He playfully opens a bag of
peanut M&Ms and lets the colorful candy
float throughout the cockpit—an impromptu
gag for the onboard video camera.
While he tries to project an air of calm
and confidence, the most harrowing part of
the flight—reentry into the atmosphere—is
still to come. And although Melvill is certain

MIKE MELVILL WAS THE TEST PILOT FOR 10 OF BURT RUTAN’S 33 DESIGNS.
HE DID MUCH OF THE ENVELOPE EXPANSION/FLIGHT TESTING ON ALL
OF RUTAN’S DESIGNS UP TO SPACESHIPONE.
JANUARY 22, 1982

MAY 28, 1982

SEPTEMBER 17, 1984

FEBRUARY 27, 1987

JANUARY 14, 1988

GRIZZLY
A STOL bush plane
with all-composite
materials. Test flight
was 2.6 hours.

SOLITAIRE
A single-seat canard
midwing motorglider.

PREDATOR
Canard cropduster
with a tractor engine
and chemical hopper.

CM44
Canard pusher
designed to
carry electronic
surveillance gear.

CATBIRD
5-place, single-engine
aircraft briefly
considered by
Beechcraft as a
production follow-on
to the Bonanza.

66 | AOPA PILOT June 2013

ist to move. He uses a thumb switch that
trims the aircraft to roll left and holds
it, but the correction becomes too great.
SpaceShipOne is rolling left and the trim
won’t reverse back to the right, and the
spacecraft’s speed and trajectory aren’t
exactly as planned.
Then there’s a loud bang and a shudder runs through the airframe, and Melvill
can’t identify the sound. He considers cutting off the rocket motor, but he allows it
to keep firing for the full 76 seconds until
all the propellant is gone. At 180,000 feet,

the plan of his friend, designer Burt Rutan,
to bend SpaceShipOne into a draggy “shuttlecock” for a relatively low-speed descent
will work, it’s never been attempted from
anywhere close to this altitude. With the
blackness of space overhead, the brilliant blue
line of the atmosphere on the horizon, and
an entire vista of Southern California from
the coast to the desert below, SpaceShipOne
begins its long and irreversible fall.
Melvill pulls a handle that tilts the
craft’s twin tail booms up 75 degrees and
prepares for what’s sure to be a wild ride.

COURTESY OF SCALED COMPOSITES, LLC; FAR LEFT BRIAN LOCKETT; FAR RIGHT ANDY NIXON

Then a violent jolt of acceleration shoots
the craft forward and lets the pilot know the
motor is blasting away at full power. The 3.5
Gs of straight-line, “eyeballs-in” acceleration throw Melvill against his seat back with
roughly the same force as a top-fuel dragster at the starting line, and he pulls firmly
on the control stick to point the nose of his
craft straight up to the heavens. In addition to being pushed back, he’s now being
yanked down in his seat by 4 Gs.
The disorienting sensations require
complete focus and absolute trust in the

AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2013

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