But Next Destination Still Uncertain

REAL TIME UPDATE - 1520 EST: It won't be the last flight of White Knight and SpaceShipOne, but it will be one of them. That's how commercial astronaut Mike Melvill described his trip to Mojave with the record-breaking duo as Scaled Composites sends them to Oshkosh, WI, for AirVenture 2005.

"I'm right this minute planning the flight, where we're going to go," Melvill told reporters during a phone conference Wednesday. "You know, this plane [White Knight] was not designed to fly across country, so it doesn't have long range. It has fairly short legs -- a maximum of 700 miles. So, with some safety buffer in there, I'm going to keep myself at 600 or less per leg, so we'll land at least twice on the way over there" from Mojave to Oshkosh.

Melvill said he faces something of a logistical challenge in getting the mated aircraft across country. "I need to find places to start these engines," he said. "These are J-85s out of a T-38. They don't have onboard starters. You have to have a huffer cart or an air starter on the ground."

Melvill said his route would probably take him to brief stops in both Albuquerque, NM, and Tulsa, OK, before the final preshow stop in Madison, WI.

Will there be a chance for those who can't make it to OSH to get a peek at the two odd-looking aircraft before they arrive at AirVenture? Probably not, said Melvill.

"At Madison, Wisconsin, we would be there for sometime. We'd be there overnight, in fact," he said in answer to a question from ANN. But Melvill wasn't at all certain there would be a chance to get up close and personal with White Knight-SpaceShipOne aircraft before they go on display at OSH.

FMI: www.scaled.com, www.eaa.org