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A Bombardier Global Express. Photograph from Arpingstone.

Kitty Kelley’s recent tell-all biography of Oprah Winfrey revealed that the talk-show diva owns a $47 million Bombardier BD-700 Global Express high-speed jet. According to biographer Kelley, when Winfrey upgraded from a $40 million Gulfstream in 2006, she also spent $1 million refurbishing her hangar. The unauthorized biography also claims that when Winfrey flies between Chicago (where her show is taped) and Santa Barbara (where she owns a home), “If Oprah is asleep on either leg of the flight, her pilots are under orders not to disturb her until she’s slept eight hours…. They must sit and wait until she wakes up.”

Other examples of celebrities and their aviation-related demands abound. The Washington Post ran a piece on April 18, 2010 that included this tidbit about New York’s Rudy Giuliani, who requires that any private aircraft on which he flies “…MUST BE a Gulfstream IV or bigger.” Former governor Sarah Palin requires her transportation be a “Lear 60 or larger (as defined by interior cabin space) for West Coast Events; or, a Hawker 800 or larger (as defined by interior cabin space) for East Coast Events and both are subject to the Speaker’s approval.”

iVillage reports that actor Jim Carrey, who owns a Gulf Stream, insists that if an airplane is used in any of his films (either as background or as transportation), that the film company first offer to charter his personal aircraft.

Know of any other examples? Add a comment below.

The James Webb Space Telescope just cleared its most significant milestone, the Mission Critical Design Review. This means that the orbiting infrared observatory, scheduled to launch on an Ariane 5 rocket no earlier than June 2014 into orbit around the sun, about a million miles from Earth, is expected to meet all science and engineering requirements for its mission.

Six of the 18 mirror segments for the Webb Telescope are prepped for tests in the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. There they'll be subjected to temperatures down to -414 F to prove that they can handle the cold of the space environment. It takes five days for the chamber to cool the mirrors to that level. Photo: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Givens

The telescope (here’s one of many cool artist’s concepts) is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. Development of the 18 complex mirror segments has been in progress for several years. The segments will unfold and combine to create a single mirror about 21 feet across, 2.7 times the diameter and six times the total area of the Hubble Space Telescope’s mirror. At 14,300 pounds overall, the Webb telescope is a bit more than half the weight of the Hubble, despite a sunshade that will unfold in space to the size of a tennis court. The shade will protect the telescope’s sensitive instruments from the radiation given off by the sun, Earth and moon.

The mirrors are now being polished at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado. The backplane of the telescope, the structure that supports the mirror segments, is being manufactured by Alliant Techsystems (ATK) in Magna, Utah. ATK is best known as the manufacturer of the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle. The mirror segments’ positions on the backplane will need to be fine-tuned to tolerances just a fraction of the width of a human hair in order to focus light on the device’s sensitive instruments as the Webb peers farther into the universe, and therefore farther back in time, than any telescope in history.

Dennis Eggert, president of the Minnesota Air & Space Museum, is in desperate need of storage space for a 1911 Steco [Stephens Engineering Company] Aerohydroplane. “God forbid if it comes to calling a trash truck or Dumpster,” he says, “but it’s got to be moved.” The aircraft had been disassembled and stored in various sites since 1914; Eggert’s group was finally able to assemble and display it in an Owatonna museum in 1998. When the Heritage Halls Transportation Museum closed a few years later, the Steco moved to the American Wings Air Museum in Blaine, where it was on exhibit until that museum closed in 2009. Since then the Steco has been stored at a nearby hangar, but it must be moved by May 23. “Ideally we would like to keep it at Anoka County Airport in Blaine,” Eggert says, “so when it finds a home we have qualified people who know how to work on it. The aircraft is 99 years old and made of the original wood, fabric, and dozens of bay wires – it is a very delicate structure. Still, all options are open.”

The 1911 Steco Aerohydroplane (Photo: Minnesota Air & Space Museum)

The Steco had made a few flights from Lake Michigan before it was stored. It came with Burgess floats and tricycle landing gear. The movable empennage provided directional control; there were no rudders, ailerons, or warping wings. “We finally figured out that Stephens was trying to get around the Wright brothers’ wing warping,” says Eggert. “He wanted to compete for aeronautical patents.”

You can reach Dennis Eggert at 651 – 291- 7925 ; e-mail steco1911@aol.com

After being shut down due to worries about volcanic ash choking jet engines, air traffic resumed over Europe last week, as seen in this visualization produced by the folks at ITO World.

Still picking yourself up off the floor after reading our recent post about the $152,000 that was paid at auction for Neil Armstrong’s autograph, along with his famous “one small step” quote, written on a sheet of the Apollo 11 flight plan?

Here’s what Armstrong had to say in his 2005 biography by James Hansen about rumors of such a memento:

“The ultimate Armstrong memento, [collector Robert] Pearlman relates, would be a signed picture or letter that includes Neil’s famous quote ‘one small step.’ For years it was believed that no authentic examples of such an item existed. Recently, ‘an authentic example,’ signed while Neil was still in quarantine, surfaced, and though it never sold, many thought it could easily reach $25,000, if not higher. Armstrong categorically denounces any such item as a fake. ‘I know that to be false, because I have never, ever quoted myself. From day one, I never did that. So it doesn’t exist anywhere. Not for my mom, not for the Smithsonian, not for anybody—there is not one anywhere. Not in quarantine or any other time. I never did one.’ “

Armstrong hasn’t given an autograph in years. According to his biography, he signed anything he was asked to for the first fifteen or so years after the moon landing. Then, dealers of collectibles began misrepresenting themselves as school teachers or children, asking for signed photos by mail. By 1993, Armstrong saw that forgeries of his signature were being sold on the Internet, and stopped giving his autograph, advice that Charles Lindbergh had given him in September 1969 at a banquet of  the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

Nonetheless, Armstrong’s autograph, according to Paul Fraser Collectibles of the United Kingdom, is the most valuable in the world, and fetches more than $7,500 these days. Here’s Fraser’s top ten list:

10. Mick Jagger

9. Pele

8. Madonna

7. Bob Dylan

6. Muhammad Ali

5. J.K. Rowling

4. Queen Elizabeth II

3. Paul McCartney

2. Tiger Woods

1. Neil Armstrong

"Where do I sign? Not." The Apollo 11 crew arrives at the White House at the conclusion of their 45-day Giant Step Presidential Goodwill Tour, November 1969. Photo: NASA