AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - June 2013 - 67

The unanticipated roll during its
ascent into space, and Melvill’s hurried and abrupt corrections, has put
SpaceShipOne about 22 miles away from
its planned reentry point. Melvill is sure
he can glide safely back to the Mojave
Airport—but first he has to make it
through the coming trial of reentry.
UNLIKELIEST ASTRONAUT. Mike Melvill
doesn’t fit the typical military-trained,
academically overachieving astronaut
profile. The South Africa native failed
a math course and never finished high
school. He raced motorcycles and became

could do his job more efficiently if he could
fly his own airplane to job sites.
“Once I had my private, commercial,
and instrument ratings, I began to look forward to people breaking things because it
meant I got to fly,” he said. “I thoroughly
enjoyed all aspects of flying and wanted to
do it as much as possible.”
Me l v i l l t r av e l e d t o O s h k o s h ,
Wisconsin, for the EAA convention
in 1974 and bought a set of plans for
an airplane called a VariViggen from
designer Rutan, who was selling them
from the backseat of his own VariViggen
on the flight line. Melvill knew how

his real passion, which was designing new
airplanes,” Melvill said.
He and Sally talked about the offer
during the long series of flights home to
Indiana, and with her support, they moved
to the dusty, windswept, tumbleweedstrewn high desert town of Mojave. “Sally
recognized that this was a rare opportunity,
and she saw the possibilities,” Melvill said.
“She encouraged me to go ahead and do it.”
Now, Mojave and its bustling spaceport
are firmly on the aviation map, and a welcome sign at the highway entrance boasts
that it is the “Home of SpaceShipOne.”
(There’s the Voyager Cafe at the center

PHOTOS COURTSEY SCALED COMPOSITES, LLC; SECOND FROM LEFT CHAD SLATTERY; FAR RIGHT MIKE MASSEE

MAY 9, 1993

JUNE 19, 1996

JULY 26, 1998

MAY 20, 2003

AUGUST 7, 2003

QUIVER D1
Later known as
the “Raptor” Melvill
flew in the “saddle”
on the back of the
long-endurance UAV
and had a very close
call during testing.

BOOMERANG
Rutan called this
twin the “best for
general aviation”
because of its spin
resistance in the event
of an engine failure.

PROTEUS
High-altitude
research aircraft.

WHITE KNIGHT
3-place, high-altitude,
flexible aircraft.

SPACESHIPONE
Melvill flew the
first flight of this
space-bound aircraft
for 24 minutes.

a machinist at 17. He married his childhood
sweetheart, Sally, and they emigrated to the
United States in the late 1960s. He became
a U.S. citizen in 1972, and his motivation
to fly was a dislike of airline travel—not a
dream of exploration.
Melvill lived and worked in Muncie,
Indiana, and his innate ability to diagnose and fix broken machinery had him
traveling throughout the country to
repair specialized industrial box-cutting
machines. During the tedious waits in airport terminals, he came to believe that he

to build things from blueprints, and
he became the first customer to complete a VariViggen. He and Sally flew
the odd-looking airplane to the West
Coast for a business trip, then on a lark,
decided to drop in on Rutan at his home
base in Mojave.
Rutan was so impressed with Melvill’s
airplane, and with the man who built it,
that he offered him a job on the spot. “He
said he needed someone to answer builders’ questions because all the customer
service he had to provide took away from

of the airfield named in honor of another
Rutan design, and Scaled Composites is
one of the city’s largest private employers.) Melvill built the first Rutan-designed
Long EZ from plans, and he flew the airplane around the world with the designer’s
brother, Dick Rutan, in his own Long EZ
in 1997.
Melvill still owns and flies that twoseat aircraft, which has now logged more
than 4,200 flight hours, and he and Sally
(also a pilot) have taken it throughout
North America during 32 years of flying.
www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 67

http://www.aopa.org/pilot

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - June 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - June 2013