Page 20 - Aerotech News and Review Dec. 16 2016

MOJAVE, from 19
The Mojave-based company also works with
The International Flight Test Institute. Glaser said that among other efforts, Flight Research executed a unique First Flight Course for cus- tomers at the Commercial Aircraft Company of China which prepared their crews for the upcoming first flight of the C919 airliner.
“Our instructors traveled to China to assist in selection of the crews and present valuable safety information at China’s annual Flight Test Symposium, as well as attend their Zhu- hai Airshow.”
Flight Research Inc. uses a number of air- craft in their training which can be customize to a customer’s specific needs. These include the MB-326 jet trainer, the Sabreliner, the DHC1 Chipmunk, the T-67 Firefly and the NDN-IT Turbine Firecracker.
The course duration is two to four days de- pending on each customer’s needs and experi- ence, and many times the course can be com- pleted over a weekend at the training facility in Mojave.
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“Plane Crazy is one of the best things hap- pening in Mojave!” says Cathy Hansen, pres- ident and founding director of the Mojave Transportation Museum Foundation.
Held on the third Saturday of each month at Mojave Air & Spaceport, Plane Crazy Satur- day is a free historic aviation display day and a great opportunity for families to meet the aircraft owners and pilots.
“We have an educational presentation at 11 a.m. by people you read about in history books and aviation magazines. It’s very informal and friendly, where the audience is free to ask questions and interact with guest speakers,” added Hansen.
The event begins at 10 a.m. and contin- ues until 2 p.m. Entrance to the flight line is through the Voyager Restaurant, which opens at 7 a.m. for breakfast. Posters, shirts and aero- space art are available for sale and viewing.
On Dec 17, guest speaker Dick Rutan will share his adventures of the historical and re- cord breaking flight of the Voyager. That eve- ning, he and Burt Rutan will be attending a 30th Anniversary event at the Stuart O. Witt Event Center, which is open to the public. Contact www.mojavemuseum.org for tickets.
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Not everyone at the Mojave Air & Space Port gets excited about building aircraft and rockets — Doug Scroggins is all about tearing them apart.
In 1998 he came to Mojave to buy a Convair 880 jetliner and to start a foundation to save the plane. “The foundation never took off as planned, but looking at Mojave’s boneyard sparked an idea — to dismantle the retired jet liners stored at the airport,” said Scroggins. He formed Scroggins Aviation which took on many dismantling jobs at Mojave.
Photograph courtesy of Virgin Galactic Virgin Spaceship Unity glides for the first time after being released from Virgin Mothership Eve above the Mojave Desert Dec. 3.
Growing up around aviation, his father would take him to the airports. “I think I fell in love with airplanes the first time I saw
one fly,” said Scroggins. That passion led him to write a book “Junkyard Jets” along with Nicholas A. Veronico in 2010, depicting
the life and death of a commercial airliner. In 2008, Scroggins and his Chinese partner founded ARC Aerospace Industries, an aircraft dismantling and recycling company with its
base operations in Victorville, Calif. Scroggins sold his shares in 2012 to pursue his passion in the motion picture field of sup- plying aviation mock-ups and founded Scrog- gins Aviation Mockup & Effects, a Las Vegas based company, specializing in fabricating aerospace mock-ups to the film and television
industry.
With his shop only a few hours away from
Mojave, he often comes to the desert. “We keep our oversized aviation mockups in Mo- jave. Some of them include the MD-80 fuse- lage used in the movie Flight, starring Denzel Washington and the Airbus A320 fuselage sections used in the film Sully, starring Tom Hanks.”
Scroggins’ company has fabricated air- craft and helicopters for several blockbuster films: Captain America: Civil War, Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys and Independence Day, just to name a few. Upcoming films in 2017 include Spider-Man: Homecoming, Dunkirk, Jumanji and Fifty Shades Darker.
“With new tax incentives, we are hoping more filming will be done in California,” said Scroggins, whose company works on movies throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The 30th anniversary of the Voy- ager, the world’s longest flight, will be celebrated Dec. 17 at the Mojave Air & Space Port.
Dick Rutan will be the guest speaker for “Plane Crazy Satur- day,” a monthly event sponsored by the Mojave Transportation Museum Foundation and starting at 11 a.m.
And at 5 p.m., a gala event to mark the anniversary will be held in the Stuart O. Witt Event Center. For tickets and more information, visit www.mojavemuseum.org.
On Dec. 23, 1986, Voyager com- pleted the first nonstop, non-refueled
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flight around the world.
Voyager, a unique aircraft construct-
ed almost entirely of lightweight graph- ite-honeycomb composite materials and laden with fuel, lifted from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., at 8:01:44 a.m., PST, Dec. 14, and returned nine days later at 8:05:28 a.m., PST, Dec. 23, 1986.
For their record-breaking flight, the pilots, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, the designer, Burt Rutan, and the crew chief, Bruce Evans, earned the Collier Trophy, aviation’s most prestigious award.
Voyager was the result of six years of design, construction and development
byatalentedteamofindividuals.
The aircraft was designed by Burt Rutan, Dick’s brother, a well-known
designerofhomebuiltairplanessuchas the VariViggen and VariEze and corpo- rate aircraft such as the Beech Starship.
Voyager was constructed in 18 months by Dick Rutan, Jeana Yeager, and Bruce Evans.
December 16, 2016
Photograph by Linda KC Reynolds Doug Scroggins stands in front of an partial Airbus A320 that was used in the film Sully, the story of Chesley Sullenberger, an American pilot who became a hero after landing his damaged plane on the Hudson River in order to save the flight's passengers and crew. Scrog- gins Aviation Mockup & Effects, a company that specializes in building aerospace sets for
major motion picture studios, stores airplanes at the Mojave boneyard.
Mojave Air & Space Port marks important anniversary
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