PILOTS FLY INTO BOBBLE HISTORY.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

Joining the likes of Willie Mays, Dale Earnhardt and the Rolling Stones, NASA test pilots and astronauts W.J. ``Pete'' Knight and Gordon Fullerton have become bobblehead dolls.

Two thousand flight-suited figurines with oversize spring-mounted heads bearing the pilots' facial features - 1,000 each for the late state lawmaker Knight, who entered politics after his aviation career, and Fullerton - were commissioned by the Lancaster JetHawks and will be given away at an Aug. 13 game saluting the Antelope Valley aerospace industry.

``It gives our fans something different,'' the JetHawks general manager, Brad Seymour, said. ``It's a unique way to use the bobblehead craze, and these are obviously two very well-respected people in the community.''

The two pilots agreed to have bobbleheads made in their likenesses before Knight's death May 7 from leukemia at age 74.

``Gordon is very humble. It took him a little bit to come around to the idea. Sen. Knight was very excited about the idea,'' Seymour said.

Knight had a 32-year career in the Air Force before he went into politics. He earned his astronaut wings by flying X-15 rocket planes at Edwards Air Force Base, then went to Vietnam, where he flew F-100 fighter jets and earned three Distinguished Flying Crosses.

Fullerton, 67, went into space on shuttles Columbia and Challenger and has flown high-performance aircraft for more than four decades, starting as an Air Force pilot in F-86 fighters and B-47 bombers. He still flies for NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards.

The bobbleheads were produced by a Seattle company called Alexander Global, which since 1999 has made more than 18 million bobbleheads depicting 5,200 individuals.

``It's become its own product type. It's not just a trinkety novelty,'' said Mike Lewis of Alexander Global. ``You're not a Major League Baseball player until somebody makes you into a bobblehead.''

If anybody wants to make a bobblehead doll of a boss or father or school principal, it would cost $5,000 to $8,000 for a minimum of 1,000 figurines to get rid of. One thousand is the company's minimum order, Lewis said.

While most bobblehead dolls are produced from photographs, laser scanning produces ones with even more details - as in the bobbleheads Alexander Global created of Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts for the Rolling Stones' 2002-03 world tour.

``The band sat down and were laser-scanned,'' Lewis said.

The laser-scanned dolls are, Lewis said, ``highly authentic - to the degree it freaks you out.''

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Brad Seymour, the Lancaster JetHawks manager, shows bobblehead dolls of Gordon Fullerton, left, and Pete Knight.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer