| First name and last name | Michael Melvill |
| Date of birth | 11.11.1940 |
| Nationality | ZAF |
Mission:
SpaceShipOne
Additional information Michael Melvill
South African-American test pilot rocketplane pilot. Flew on SpaceShipOne Flight 15P, SpaceShipOne Flight 16P. Mike Melvill is Vice President/General Manager and a Test Pilot at Scaled Composites, LLC in Mojave, California. Melvill spent his childhood in South Africa. Although born in Johannesburg, he was raised in Durban, and attended Hilton College. He met his wife Sally in Durban in 1959. He married her in the UK in 1961. The couple emigrated to America in 1967, settled in Indiana, and became interested in flying. He decided to build his own VariViggen (Burt Rutan's first homebuilt kit aircraft). In 1978 he and Sally flew the finished aircraft to California to show it to Rutan. The aircraft designer hired them both on the spot. In 1982 he was named Rutan's lead test pilot. He returned to South Africa for the first time in 16 years in 1988, and again during his around-the-world Long-EZ flight with Rutan in 1997. Melvill holds an FAA Commercial pilot's certificate, ASEL, AMEL, instrument airplane, Rotorcraft-helicopter and Glider. He has accumulated more than 6900 flight hours in 123 fixed wing-types, and 11 rotary wing types. He was awarded the Ivan C Kincheloe trophy in 1999 by the SETP for high altitude, developmental flight-testing of the model 281 Proteus aircraft and holds four World and National speed and altitude records in Burt's Catbird and Proteus aircraft. He is an Associate Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and has been a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association for 31 years. He has flown nine first flights of Burt Rutan's aircraft designs, including SpaceShipOne. Melvill built his own VariViggen and Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft.
