A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

In honor of the contributions to aerospace by Burt and Dick Rutan, the directors of California’s Mojave Air and Space Port (KMHV) have agreed to rename the facility Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field. Burt Rutan established Rutan Aircraft factory at KMHV in the mid-1970s, when it was just a small general aviation airport. They&nbsp;started Scaled Composites there almost a decade later, helping propel it into a noted center of aerospace innovation.

 


A prolific designer with no fewer than 46 aircraft to his credit, Burt Rutan has received the Collier and National Air and Space Museum trophies for his work on historic aircraft such as Voyager, which his former Air Force pilot brother Dick copiloted in the first nonstop flight around the world, and SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately&nbsp;funded spacecraft to enter space.

 


Five of his designs—the above two plus the VariEze, the Quickie, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which was&nbsp;flown by the late adventurer Steve Fossett in the first solo nonstop circumnavigation of the Earth—are enshrined in the National Air &amp; Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

 


According to the KMHV board, the Rutans'&nbsp;“aviation achievements have played a key role in the evolution of the aerospace industry and the success of the Mojave Air &amp; Space Port organization.”

Mojave Airport Honors Rutan Name

The directors of California’s Mojave Air and Space Port (KMHV) have agreed to rename the facility Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field.

2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit

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