Burt Rutan, Aircraft Designer Education

¶ … Burt Rutan, aircraft designer

Education

Background in aviation.

First company

Second company

Recent accident at Scaled.

Burt Rutan

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and analyze the life of aviation entrepreneur Burt Rutan. Specifically, it will discuss the many contributions he has made to aviation and aviation exploration. Burt Rutan may be one of the most premier and knowledgeable aircraft designers today. He has spent decades designing and building unique aircraft that serve special purposes in the aircraft industry.

Rutan was born in Oregon in 1943, but was raised in Dinuba, California. He developed an interest in aviation design at an early age. One biographer notes, "He started working seriously with flying models while in junior high school, eventually winning some thirty trophies at competitions sponsored by the National Air Modellers. Many of these were at the local level, but he also won at the national level" (Heppenheimer 390). Rutan graduated from California Polytechnic Institute in 1965 with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He worked for the Air Force and private industry before he founded the Rutan Aircraft Factory (RAF) in 1974. Based in Mojave, California near Edwards Air Force Base, RAF still exists with a handful of core volunteers supporting Rutan's early aircraft designs. However, in 1982 Rutan founded Scaled Composites (Scaled), the design and built facility he is most known and associated with. The company employs about 130 people, and has helped set aviation records literally around the world ("About Rutan Aircraft").

After founding RAF, Rutan began to turn out unique and innovative airplane designs. He perfected the use of the canard (a second set of wings or winglets used on many airplane designs today). Canards had been in use since the Wright Brothers historic flight, but most designers found them unstable. However, Rutan designed them as a second set of wings in the aircraft, and reached the required stability necessary (Heppenheimer 392). This successful canard led to his first commercial plane design, the Vari Viggen. The plane was never a commercial success, but it helped lead to the design of several other very successful models. Interestingly, Rutan never built the actually planes for sale. Because of the technicalities involved with design and building experimental aircraft with the FAA, instead, Rutan sold the plans to homebuilders, who faced far less scrutiny from the FAA (Heppenheimer 392). His next model was the Vari-Eze, which used a unique fiberglass-on-foam construction that lightened the aircraft but was still surprisingly strong and adequate for aircraft design. This distinctive design was also much cheaper for homebuilders, allowing them to create an aircraft for a few thousand dollars while reducing the need for wing spars and other structural support (Heppenheimer 392). The Vari-Eze was extremely popular with homebuilders, because it was much faster than most other homebuilt planes that were on the market, and it was cheaper to build. Author Heppenheimer continues, "Rutan sold some six thousand instruction sets for his airplane, at $100 each" (Heppenheimer 393). There were problems with the plane however, and Rutan made modifications to create the Long Eze (the plane singer John Denver was flying when he was killed in 1997).

Rutan's construction techniques gained the attention of NASA, and he partnered with them and other aircraft corporations to design high-speed, low cost, delta-wing aircraft, like the AD-1 in 1980. Rutan formed Scaled Composites about this time, and spent much of this time working on very creative and innovative aircraft designs. His brother, Richard Rutan also joined the company during this time. Rutan's next challenge was to design an aircraft that could circle the globe without refueling. Rutan succeeded in this goal when he designed the Voyager, a masterpiece of engineering that indeed circled the globe with his brother Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager on board in December 1986. They covered the entire globe in just about nine days, with eighteen gallons of fuel remaining in the tanks (Heppenheimer 402-404). For their efforts, they all received a Presidential Citizens Medal from President Reagan, and gained notoriety around the world.

Rutan has continued to innovate in his quest for aviation immortality. Today, his company is working on several different prototypes for NASA and commercial enterprises, including the DCX, a single-stage to orbit rocket that could replace the Space Shuttle in space travel and the Roton, another single-stage vehicle that can transport up to 7,000 pounds into space. He is also partnering with Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson to create SpaceShipOne, and SpaceShipTwo, sub-orbital spacecraft that can reach 328,000 feet or more. SpaceShipOne made history when it reached 328,000 feet during several test runs. All of these designs could revolutionize the way Americans (and the world), travel in the future, making air travel faster, and space travel a real possibility ("Scaled Composites"). To add to the list of innovations, the SpaceShip Company formed by Branson and Rutan is also working on creating a viable spaceport, as well. There are also many other small, private jets and aircraft under design at Scaled at this time.