Posted on 11/05/2003 10:25:24 PM PST by BenLurkin
With the possibility of becoming the nation's first inland spaceport looming, Kern County voters elected a new, albeit very familiar, face to the East Kern Airport District Board of Directors. Famed aviator Dick Rutan will join re-elected incumbents Jim Balentine and Cathy Hansen for four-year terms on the board. They beat out long-time board member Loren Burch and newcomer Mike Potter.
"I guess I didn't have any trouble with name recognition," Rutan said. "I was really honored that the people of the district thought I could help in some way."
Directors Marie Walker and JoAnn Painter round out the five-member board.
The district governs the Mojave Airport, home to the Civilian Flight Test Center, and provides support to the California City Municipal Airport.
The Mojave Airport is experiencing a resurgence as the emerging commercial space industry establishes a foothold there. Seven rocket and space exploration companies already call the airport home, and the facility is seeking a federal license for space launches.
"I think we are on the brink of some incredible opportunities for growth" in space travel, development of technologies for the war on terrorism and other industrial development, Rutan said. "Mojave is right where it should be to support those activities."
With 19 of 19 precincts reporting Tuesday night, Rutan led the vote tally with 664 votes, or 25.3%. The 65-year-old Mojave resident is perhaps best known for his aviation exploits such as the record-setting around-the-world flight of the Voyager.
Mojave native Jim Balentine, 48, who has served as director since 1995, received 600 votes, or 22.9%.
Cathy Hansen, 56, will begin her third term with 497 votes, or 18.9%.
"I am thrilled, thrilled," Hansen said. "This is such an exciting time for Mojave Airport. We're just moving up and we're going to take the whole East Kern with us."
Hansen barely edged out incumbent Loren Burch, 58, who has served on the board almost continuously since its inception more than 30 years ago. Burch garnered 478 votes, or 18.2% of the total.
Former TWA pilot and owner of an aircraft salvage business at the airport, challenger Mike Potter, 59, received 379 votes, or 14.4%.
I flew in to Mohave in 1985 with some friends to see the Voyager under construction. It was a fun trip.
Leaving out of there was interesting, since I was flying a rented 172 carrying 4 people on a 104 degree day. It took a good portion of the 9500' runway to break ground, then I never could get any higher than 6500'.
An often seen phrase in NTSB reports.
If you like hairy flying stories, read this one: No Pisco Sours for Me, Thanks!
Licenses? You have to be kidding me. Did Lucky Lindy get special "license" to fly to Paris? Did the Wright Bros. need government permission before they were allowed to fly their heavier-than-air craft in Dec. 1903? Did Columbus get a license from North American Indian Tribes before he discovered the new world?
Give me a break. I hope the Rutans tell the government to piss off and make the first commercial sub-obital flight whenever they are ready to go. They can give SPACECOM a 15 minute heads-up on trajectory and schedule, as a courtesy.
Thanks
Indeed; that's true. But as the following shows, Corrigan flew a decade after Lindbergh did. I've yet to see anything that indicates Lindy had to get a "Mother, may I" from anyone before making his historic flight.
Corrigan was part of a select club of early aviators. By 1938 he had logged 1,500 hours of flying time. Eleven years after Lindbergh's famous trans-Atlantic flight, he filed a flight plan to fly from Newfoundland to Ireland. Authorities denied him permission on the grounds that his nine-year-old second-hand Curtis Robin monoplane, for which he paid $325, was too old and unsafe for such a long flight over water. On July 17, 1938 he told authorities that he would fly from New York to Long Beach instead.[emphasis added]
One unmanned spacecraft (maybe the Voyager) contained a small optical window made out of pure diamond.
The manufacturer of the spacecraft had to obtain a federal export license and pay a tax on the diamond because it was being "exported" from the United States.
I believe you. That's why I hope Rutans tell the government to piss-off; this kind of meddling has got to stop, and the only way it will is if somebody with the reputation and balls of a Rutan, a Lindbergh, a Columbus, stands up and says "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take it any more." Trying to prosecute the Rutans for not getting a "Mother, may I" after they return from a successful sub-orbital flight that costs a tenth of what the Space shuttle costs to fly would be the biggest PR disaster the FEDS have seen since the Viet Nam War.
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