Design and Development
The Scaled Composites model number for White Knight is 318. White Knight is registered with the Federal Aviation Administration as N318SL.
The White Knight carrier airplane was designed around the twin afterburning J-85 engines, which were selected for their availability and low cost. The aircraft was a completely new independent design. White Knight and SpaceShip One shared the same forward fuselage outer mold line (OML) to reduce development costs and with the original intent to allow for White Knight to act as a flying simulator for training SpaceShip One pilots. White Knight first flew on August 1, 2002. The flight was aborted shortly after takeoff due to a problem with the outboard wing spoilers. These trailing edge spoilers were designed to greatly increase the glide slope so that the White Knight vehicle could act as a flying simulator for training of SpaceShip One pilots. During the first flight, the mechanical over-center torque was insufficient to maintain the spoilers in the closed position. The spoilers deployed into the free stream and began a limit cycle forcing the pilot (Mike Melvill) to abort. The spoilers were subsequently disabled completely and the desire for a steep glide slope matching SpaceShip One was abandoned.
White Knight next flew on August 5, 2002, and this time performed well. Development proceeded over the next few months. With White Knight developed and evaluated, on April 18, 2003 White Knight and SpaceShipOne were presented to the media.
Subsequently, White Knight flew as part of the Tier One program that won the Ansari X Prize on 2004 October 4. Afterwards White Knight was used to carry and launch DARPA's experimental X-37 spaceplane for its approach and landing tests in 2005 and 2006.
It was followed up by the White Knight 2 which has a similar but larger design.
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