I was going through some DVD’s that I
created a number of years ago and I dug up one that I made in
2005 and had forgotten about. It is excerpted from video and
photos I took when I went with my oldest son, Thomas. He was
12 at the time, and it was a wonderful trip for both of us. A
number of circumstances conspired to create a circumstance
that made it extra special for us. None of these did we know
about in advance of planning our trip….it just happened. The
list is follows:
Scaled/Rutan
brought White Knight, Spaceship One, and the Global Flyer to
the show.
Burt also
brought a large number of Scaled employees to OSH.
Chris Weiser
was one of the ones who came to OSH with Burt. He is a
mechanical engineer who worked for Burt for 20 years. He is
also the nephew of a family friend here in Grand Junction
(his aunt taught both of my boys 3rd grade).
We had
previously met Chris at his Aunt’s house where he gave
Thomas a Voyager pin that had flown to space on the first
Spaceship One suborbital flight.
When we were
“outside the rope” looking White Knight and Spaceship One
and taking in the afternoon airshow, Chris happened to see
us and brought us inside of the security for a personal
tour.
As a result of all of these things
happening, my son now has his fingerprints on the nose of
Spaceship One that is hanging in the Smithsonian…. Since that
was the next stop after OSH 2005
I had forgotten that I put this DVD
together and sent a copy to Chris Weiser as a thank you. He
retired from Scaled the next year. I have converted the DVD
(26 minutes into an online video and put it on my website.
Here is the link to the video, so you can watch it if you
want. There is the usual menacing Oshkosh thunderstorm, where
you will see our tent where we camped next to my old Cherokee.
There is also a nice intro by Paul Allen in the evening
program. Paul Allen passed away last year, but went on to
start the Stratolaunch program after this and Matthew Curcio
now works on that project. The photo montage in the last 1/3
of the video contains a nice photo of my son standing in front
of Bob Malechek’s beautiful Q200. Hope you enjoy watching.
