History
Catbird set two world records which as of May 2012 still stand. The first was in Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) class C-1b (land planes with takeoff weight of between 500 and 1000 kg) speed over a closed circuit of 2 000 km 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) without payload. For this record, set at Mojave piloted by Dick Rutan, a speed of 401.46 km/h (249.46 mph) was achieved. The second record was set in class C-1c (aircraft between 1000 and 1750 kg takeoff weight), over the same course but piloted by Mike Melvill, at a speed of 413.78 km/h (257.11 mph).
The aircraft was stored inverted from the ceiling of Scaled Composites' Mojave hangar until April 2011. The aircraft was restored to flying condition by Zach Reeder, Jim Reed and Mike Melvill. Catbird's second first flight was July 7, 2011.
Read more about this topic: Scaled Composites Catbird
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)