Burt Rutan

Burt Rutan

Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943 in Estacada, Oregon) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He is most famous for his design of the record -breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the suborbital rocket plane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004.

Biography

Born in Estacada, Oregon, 30 miles southeast of Portland, and raised in Dinuba, California, Rutan displayed an early interest in aircraft design. By the time he was eight years old he was designing and building model aircraft. His first solo flight in a real plane was an Aeronca Champ in 1959, when he was sixteen. In 1965 he graduated third in his class from California Polytechnic University with an aeronautical engineering degree.

From 1965 to 1972 Rutan worked for the U.S. Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base as a flight test project engineer, working on nine separate projects including fighter spin tests and the XC-142 VSTOL transport. Shortly after, he became director of the Bede Test Center for Bede Aircraft, in Newton, Kansas, a position he held until 1974.

Rutan struck out on his own in June of 1974 with the creation of the Rutan Aircraft Factory in the Mojave Desert, where he designed and developed prototypes for a number of aircraft, mostly homebuilt. His first design was the Rutan VariViggen, a two-seat pusher with a canard in front. The canard was later to become a standard feature in most Rutan designs. In April 1982, Burt Rutan founded Scaled Composites,LLC, which has become one of the world's pre-eminent aircraft design and prototyping facilities. Scaled Composites is headquartered in Mojave, California.

Rutan is currently married to Tonya Rutan, his fourth wife.

Aircraft designs

Over the years Burt Rutan has designed hundreds of aircraft, including the now-famous Voyager, which was piloted by Dick, his brother, and Jeana Yeager in 1986 on a recordbreaking nine-day non-stop flight around the world.

He made headlines again in 2004 with SpaceShipOne, which became the first private/privately funded craft to reach space in June of that year and win the Ansari X Prize a few months later on October 4. SpaceShipOne completed 2 flights within 2 weeks, flying with the equivalent weight of 3 persons and doing so while reusing at least 80% of the vehicle hardware. The craft displays Rutan's unique form of design and aircraft concept. This achievement quickly turned to commercial success. Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Virgin Airlines, has announced that it will begin space tourism flights in 2008 using craft based on the designs of SpaceShipOne. Dubbed SpaceShipTwo, these new craft, also designed by Burt Rutan, will allow 20 "experience optimized" passengers to glimpse the planet from 70-80 miles in suborbit. Production of the first of five planned SpaceShipTwo crafts is expected to start in late 2005, with the first test flights in 2007. Passengers are expected to fly in late 2008 or early 2009.

Burt Rutan is also working with Transformational Space Corporation in the development of an air launched, two stage to orbit, manned spacecraft. It is intended to have a taxi capacity to carry passengers to the International Space Station. As of June 2005, air drop tests of quarter scale mockups had verified the practicality of air release and rotation to vertical.

Some of his other designs include the Raytheon Beechcraft Starship, the Proteus high-altitude long-endurance aircraft, the Ares military jet, the remarkably asymmetrical Boomerang, as well as small, light, general-aviation aircraft such as the VariEze, Long-EZ, Quickie, Quickie 2, and Defiant.

On March 3, 2005, the GlobalFlyer, an aircraft similar to the Voyager design but with stiffer materials and a jet engine, completed the first solo non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world. Steve Fossett was the pilot. Between February 7, 2006 â€" February 11, 2006, Fossett and GlobalFlyer set a record for the longest flight in history: 26,389.3 miles.