Free Republic

From a distance, it looks like a war plane imagined by Hayao Miyazaki, or the type of machine that could only exist in a science fiction novel. But according to aviation enthusiasts who captured footage of it soaring in the California skies last week, it’s an experimental aircraft designed by Stratolaunch, an aerospace company located in the Mojave Desert. Chances are, residents in surrounding towns will see more of it, too. Described as the world’s largest flying aircraft, Roc — which looks like two 747s fused together and has a wingspan larger than a football field — recently completed a...

SANTA FE, N.M. - The X-Prize Cup, envisioned as an annual international event that will showcase emerging commercial space ventures in a series of races, has implications for Mojave Airport in the future. The event is seen as a continuation of the spirit of the Ansari X-Prize competition, an international race intended to jump-start the commercial space tourism industry. The Ansari X-Prize competition will award $10 million to the first privately funded team to successfully build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to an altitude of 328,000 feet and safely return to Earth, then turn around and...

MOJAVE - Mojave Airport businesses are preparing to take advantage of the airport's newly approved foreign trade zone designation. The U.S. Department of Commerce last week approved including the airport in the foreign trade zone, said Stuart Witt, East Kern Airport District general manager. Including the airport extends the zone, which is managed by Palmdale. "It places us in some very nice company across the country," he said. To get the processes in place to utilize the zone's benefits will take approximately 60 days, he added. Foreign trade zone status allows carriers to transport goods from the airport to foreign...