Yes, the fuel selector valve was over the left shoulder of the pilot. John Denver exhausted the fuel in one tank and tried to switch to the second. The act of turning to reach the valve (which had a pair of vise grips for a know - not a Rutan design) he put the plane into the ocean. rutan's design had nothing to do with the wreck. There was still fuel on board in the tanks that was switched "off". Brent --- Wayne Reese <waynereese@qwest.net> wrote:
The builder of Denver's plan modified the fuel select valve location to "make it safer" by keeping fuel lines out of the cockpit. Unfortunately it made it unsafe to fly. That's my understanding Wayne
-----Original Message----- From:
utah-astronomy-bounces+waynereese=qwest.net@mailman.xmission.com
[mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+waynereese=qwest.net@mailman.xmission.com
] On Behalf Of diveboss@xmission.com Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 5:43 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Spaceship One
Just caught the replay of the SpaceShipOne program on The Discovery channel. Actually I thought it was pretty good. I did notice that me and the pilot Mr. Melvill have a couple of things in common. First, his current wife and my exwife both need ironing, and second, we both dropped out of school. ;) I'm glad to know that there are some successful people who can't do math either.
I walked away from this program with a couple of unanswered questions nagging me like, did anyone notice how ugly that windmill farm looked out in the desert? Personally I think it would look better off the coast of Massachusetts. ;) And second, didn't Burt Rutan design John Denvers airplane? The one that crashed into Monterey Bay?
Thanks for the heads up on the replay Lisa. It was worth the 2 hours. :)
Guy
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail