Brian Binnie

Brian Binnie is one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites.

Binnie, an alumnus of Brown and Princeton Universities, served for 20 years in the United States Navy as a naval aviator flying the A-7 Corsair II, A-6 Intruder, F/A-18 Hornet, and AV-8B Harrier II. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in 1988. Binnie also helped test the Rotary Rocket Roton

On 17 December, 2003, the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flight, Binnie piloted the first powered test flight of SpaceShipOne, flight 11P, which reached a top speed of Mach 1.2 and a height of 20.7 kilometers. On October 4 2004 he piloted SpaceShipOne's second Ansari X Prize flight, flight 17P, winning the X Prize and becoming the 434th person to go into space. Reaching a height of about 112 km, Binnie become only the second person to earn his astronaut wings on a non-government spacecraft. His flight set a rocket plane height record, breaking the old record set by the North American X-15 in 1963.

Quotes

"Thank God I live in a country where this kind of thing is possible." — October 4, 2004, at a ceremony after completing flight 17P [1]

External link

• Scaled Composites biography