Burt Rutan

Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is an American retired aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. He also designed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest (342 mph/551 km/h in 67 hours) and longest (25,766 miles/41,466 km) nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period.

With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and the use of moldless composite construction in the homebuilt aircraft industry, the latter a technique that was adopted in several production and commercial aircraft in the following decades. He is the founder or co-founder of multiple aerospace companies, including the Rutan Aircraft Factory, Scaled Composites, Mojave Aerospace Ventures, and The Spaceship Company.

Rutan has designed 46 aircraft throughout his career, been included in the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World list for the year 2004, been the co-recipient of both the Collier and National Air and Space Museum trophies on two occasions (each for his accomplishments with Voyager in 1986 and SpaceShipOne in 2004), received six honorary doctoral degrees, and has won over 100 different awards for aerospace design and development. In 1995, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Rutan has five aircraft on display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum: the VariEze, Quickie, Voyager, SpaceShipOne, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. He is the younger brother of test pilot and United States Air Force fighter pilot Dick Rutan, who piloted many of Burt's earlier original designs on class record-breaking flights.

Burt Rutan was born in 1943 in Estacada, Oregon, near Portland, and raised in Dinuba, California. He was one of three children born to George (a dentist) and Irene Rutan. His sister, Nell Rutan, is a former flight attendant for American Airlines. He displayed an early interest in aircraft design. By the time he was eight years old, Rutan was designing and building model aircraft. His first solo flight piloting an airplane was in an Aeronca Champ in 1959, at age 16. In 1965, he graduated third in his class from the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo) with a BS degree in aeronautical engineering.

From 1965 to 1972, Rutan was a civilian flight test project engineer for the U.S. Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base, working on nine projects including the LTV XC-142 VSTOL transport and spin tests of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter. He left to become Director of Development of the BD-5 aircraft for Bede Aircraft in Newton, Kansas, a position he held until 1974.

In June 1974, Rutan returned to California to establish the Rutan Aircraft Factory. In this business he designed and developed prototypes for several aircraft, mostly intended for amateur builders. His first design, executed while he was still at Bede, was the VariViggen, a two-seat pusher single-engine craft of canard configuration. The canard would become a feature of many Rutan designs, notably the very popular VariEze and Long-EZ. He is also known for using exotic and unconventional materials in his designs. He was the first to use moldless composite construction. According to him, he started his composite work by copying the concept used in the repair of molded European sailplanes. His innovation was the adoption of the method not for repair but to build an aircraft with hotwire wing cores and hand-carved foam for the fuselage box. This method allowed Rutan to build a plane without a mold.

In April 1982, 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, at the Mojave Air & Space Port. That same year, Beechcraft contracted Rutan's Scaled Composites to refine the design and build the prototype Beechcraft Starship.

In 1987, Rutan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 1988, he was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum and in 1995, the National Aviation Hall of Fame at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Rutan was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1989 for leading the engineering, design, construction, and testing of a series of aircraft, including Voyager. In 2004, after SpaceShipOne flew, he was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" and as Inc. magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year". In 2005, he received the NAS Award in Aeronautical Engineering from the National Academy of Sciences. In the same year, he was awarded the Robert J. Collier Trophy, which he also obtained in 1986 for his design and development of the Voyager 15.

In a 45-year career, many of Rutan's designs have often been quite dissimilar from their predecessors. The Los Angeles Times said of his designs: "His airplanes and spacecraft take on all types of sleek shapes and sizes, looking more like the work of a sculptor than an engineer. In all, Rutan has come up with 367 individual concepts—of which 45 have flown."

In 1968, he began building his first design, the VariViggen, which first flew in April 1972. It had the rear wing, forward canard, and pusher configuration design elements which became his trademarks. In lieu of wind tunnel testing, Rutan developed aerodynamic parameters for the VariViggen using a model rigged atop his station wagon, and measured the forces while driving on empty roads.

The VariViggen was the Rutan model 27. A new set of outer wings, with winglets, was later developed by Rutan for the VariViggen, producing the VariViggen SP, Rutan model 32. The VariViggen was named in honor of the Saab 37 Viggen, a canard-configured fighter jet developed in Sweden. One VariViggen, built in France and named Micro Star, was powered by two Microturbo TRS-18 jet engines in lieu of the usual piston engine.

The VariViggen design led to the successful VariEze (pronounced "very easy") homebuilt aircraft designs, in which he pioneered the use of moldless glass-reinforced plastic construction in homebuilts. The prototype, designated Model 31, made its public debut at the 1975 EAA Convention and Fly-In (now called AirVenture) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. That same year, his brother Dick Rutan set a world distance record in the under-500 kg (1100 lb) class in the VariEze, and these aircraft went on to set other world records in this class.

They were also the first aircraft to fly with NASA-developed winglets.

Rutan made headlines again in June 2004 with SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately built, flown and funded crewed craft to reach space. The project, named "Tier One" (later known as Tier 1b), was developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which is part-owned by Scaled Composites and was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Rutan, with an estimated development cost of US$25 million (provided entirely by Allen). On October 4, the SpaceShipOne team won the Ansari X Prize of US$10 million, completing two flights within two weeks, flying with the equivalent weight of 3 persons, and doing so while reusing at least 80% of the vehicle hardware. The two flights were piloted by Mike Melville and Brian Binnie respectively. The project team was honored with the 2004 Collier Trophy, awarded by the National Aeronautic Association for "greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America". The craft embodies Rutan's unique style, and is another of the "icons of flight" displayed in the NASM Milestones of Flight exhibit. As the first privately funded spacecraft, it helped spur the beginning of the global private space race.

Virgin Galactic—an offshoot of businessman and investor Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, and the parent company of Branson and Rutan's 2005 spacecraft manufacturing startup The Spaceship Company—announced that it would begin space tourism flights in 2008 using craft based on the designs of SpaceShipOne. Dubbed SpaceShipTwo, these new craft, also designed by Rutan, are intended to allow six "experience optimized" passengers to glimpse the planet from 70 to 80 miles up in suborbital space. Production of the first of five planned SpaceShipTwo craft has started, but commercial flights did not begin in 2008 as planned. An explosion at the Scaled Composite factory at the Mojave Spaceport on July 26, 2007, which killed three engineers and seriously injured three others, may have contributed to the delay. They were testing components for SpaceShipTwo, but as of August 2007 Scaled Composites remained dedicated to perfecting the design of SpaceShipTwo. Virgin continues to work on developing SpaceShipTwo, but it has stopped predicting when commercial spaceflights will begin. A further SpaceshipTwo accident on October 31, 2014 (VSS Enterprise tail number: N339SS) resulted in the death of copilot Michael Alsbury and injuries to the pilot.

Rutan was also working with t/Space in the mid-2000s on the development of an air launched, two-stage-to-orbit, crewed spacecraft. It was intended to have a taxi capacity to carry passengers to the International Space Station. In June 2005, air drop tests of quarter scale mockups verified the practicality of air release and rotation to vertical.

On July 28, 2008, Richard Branson unveiled Scaled Composites White Knight Two Eve, at the Mojave Spaceport. The jet-powered cargo aircraft is based on SpaceShipOne's successful mothership, White Knight One, which was designed by Rutan and based on Proteus. Flight tests were set to begin in September 2008. The launch customer of White Knight Two is Virgin Galactic, which will have the first 2 units, and exclusive rights to the craft for the first few years. In 2008, Branson predicted that the maiden space voyage would take place within 18 months: "It represents ... the chance for our ever-growing group of future astronauts and other scientists to see our world in a completely new light." Virgin Galactic contracted Rutan to build the mothership and spacecraft.

On November 3, 2010, Scaled Composites announced the retirement of Rutan:

"Burt Rutan, founder of aerospace research firm Scaled Composites in 1982, had announced his plans to retire in April 2011. He currently serves as Scaled's chief technical officer and, following his retirement, Burt will assume the title of founder and chairman emeritus. Burt has worked in California's Antelope Valley for more than 45 years, initially as flight test project engineer for the Air Force and in 1974 he founded the Rutan Aircraft Factory to develop experimental aircraft for homebuilders."

"Burt is known worldwide as a legendary genius in aircraft design in the aviation world. I am very fortunate and proud to have worked by his side for the past 28 years", says President Douglas B. Shane. "We wish Burt and his wife, Tonya, the very best the future holds for them."

On April 1, 2011, Rutan retired from Scaled Composites to his home in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Rutan has continued working out of his home in retirement on various designs since stepping down from Scaled Composites in 2011. That year he said that he was working on one more innovative design.

Rutan has received numerous awards and honors for aerospace design and development throughout his over 50-year-long career. Below is a list of some of his most notable tributes and accolades.

Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)'s Dr. August Raspet Memorial Award (1976)

Presidential Citizens Medal (with Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, 1986)

National Aeronautic Association (NAA)'s Collier Trophy (with crews of Voyager and SpaceShipOne, 1986 and 2004)

Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP)'s James H. Doolittle Award (with Scaled Composites team, 1987 and 2004)