Binnie

Personal data: Birth date:  ?? 1953 Birthplace:  West Lafayette / Indiana Marital status:  married Children:  three Grade / Fonction:   Selection date:  ? Selection group:  - Job:  PLT Status:  Ret. ? Date of death:  15 Sept 2022 Age:  69 Place of death:  ?

Suborbital Spaceflights (above 100 km):

Suborbital Spaceflights (< 100 km):

Additional information:

• Binnie was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, where his Scottish father William P. Binnie was a professor of physics at Purdue University. The family returned to Scotland when Binnie was five, and lived in Aberdeen (his father taught at Aberdeen University) and later in Stirling. When Binnie was a teenager the family moved to Boston.
• Binnie, an alumnus of Brown and Princeton Universities, served for 21 years in the United States Navy as a naval aviator flying the A-7 Corsair II, A-6 Intruder, F/A-18 Hornet, and AV-8B Harrier II. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in 1988. Binnie also copiloted the Atmospheric Test Vehicle of the Rotary Rocket. In 2006, he received an Honorary degree from University of Aberdeen.
• Commander, USN, Ret.; Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering; Master of Science in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics from Brown University; Master of Science in aeronautical engineering from Princeton University; graduate of the U.S. Navy′s Test Pilot School (class 93 - June 1987 - May 1988) at Patuxent River; Test Pilot at Scaled Composites, LLC; made the historic flight of SpaceShipOne to win the X-prize.
• On December 17, 2003, the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers′ first powered flight, Binnie piloted the first powered test flight of SpaceShipOne, flight 11P, which reached a top speed of Mach 1.2 and a height of 12.9 miles (20.7 km). On October 4, 2004, he piloted SpaceShipOne′s second Ansari X Prize flight, flight 17P, winning the X Prize and becoming the 435th person to go into space. His flight, which peaked at 367,442 feet (69.6 mi; 112.0 km), set a winged aircraft altitude record, breaking the old record set by the North American X-15 in 1963. It also earned him the second set of Astronaut Wings to be given by the FAA for a flight aboard a privately operated commercial spacecraft.
• In 2014 Binnie joined XCOR Aerospace as senior engineer and test pilot, after working as a test pilot and program business manager for Scaled Composites for many years