Burt Rutan

• Born: June 17, 1943
• Place of Birth: Portland, Oregon

Significance: Rutan revolutionized aircraft design with his tail-first, canard airplanes and all-composite homebuilt and commercial aircraft. His best-known design, the Voyager, was the first aircraft to fly around the world without refueling in December 1986. Mostly through his Scaled Composites firm, he has designed forty new types of aircraft, including a catamaran, a space-load launcher, a gondola, and a car body. His futuristic-looking prototypes have been used in several Hollywood motion pictures.

Born into an airplane-involved family, Elbert Leander “Burt” Rutan began to design and build award-winning model airplanes as a teenager. He made his first solo flight at sixteen, and his ability to view aircraft design from a pilot’s viewpoint has been an important factor in the success of his many airplane designs.

In 1965, Rutan received a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from California Polytechnic University, where his thesis won a national award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. After graduating from college, he took a job as a civilian flight test project engineer at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California. He began working on his first homebuilt, the VariViggen, inspired by the canard XB-70 bomber and the canard Saab Viggen fighter.

In 1972, Rutan left the Air Force to work in development and flight testing for a homebuilt kit manufacturer. Two years later, in June 1974, he established the Rutan Aircraft Factory to develop and sell homebuilt aircraft plans. Rutan’s second homebuilt design, the VariEze, introduced in 1975, was a very efficient canard homebuilt that revolutionized homebuilding. The VariEze’s moldless composite construction of fiberglass-covered foam did not require specialized skills or tools to build and produced smooth, sculpted surfaces. The longer-range follow-up, the Long-EZ, set many distance records, including for around-the-world flights, and remains one of the most popular homebuilt aircraft. A powered glider, the Solitaire, and a push-pull, twin-engine canard, the Defiant, were his last designs for homebuilders.

In April 1982, Rutan founded the Scaled Composites firm to develop research prototypes for government and industry. Scaled Composites has produced such well-publicized aircraft as the Voyager, the Pond Racer, the AD-1 skew-wing aircraft for NASA, the Beechcraft Starship prototype, the Advanced Technology Tactical Transport, the Triumph business jet, the Ares close air support airplane, the Proteus high-altitude aircraft, and the asymmetrical twin-engine Boomerang. The firm competed in the first private race to space, the $10 million Ansari X Prize: a race to develop a practical, reasonably inexpensive, reusable flight vehicle for short flights out of the atmosphere for future space tourists. In 2004, the firm won the prize with Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, the world’s first private spaceship. Virgin Galactic commissioned Rutan to create a version of the spaceship for tourist flights, which started in 2023.

By the time Rutan retired from Scaled Composites in 2011, he had developed thirty-eight piloted craft, half a dozen unpiloted craft, and other vehicles. In 2015, he began working on developing the SkiGull, an amphibious plane that runs on regular gasoline and can land on ocean swells, grass fields, snow, beaches, and other unimproved terrain. With a projected range of 2,500 miles between refuelings and no need to stop at airports, Rutan eventually hopes to fly with his wife to remote places around the world.

Although the SkiGull remains in development, by the mid-2020s, Rutan continued contributing to aviation innovations. Rutan was an advisor for the Stratolaunch space launch carrier, a project funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen that would produce the world’s largest plane by wingspan. In 2019, Rutan began designing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Finally, Rutan continues to travel around the country, attending air shows and speaking with aviation enthusiasts. 

Throughout his career, Rutan has received many awards, including Outstanding Design Awards from the Experimental Aircraft Association, the Presidential Citizen’s Medal, the Collier Trophy, Chrysler Innovation in Design, and the British Gold Medal for Aeronautics. In 1995, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In March 2012, he received the Lifetime Achievement trophy from the National Air and Space Museum. In 2015, Rutan received the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy and, in 2021, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association R.A. Bob Hoover Trophy.

Bibliography

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Atherton, Kelsey D. “Legendary Plane Designer Burt Rutan Tests Weird Seaplane.” Popular Science, 24 Nov. 2015, www.popsci.com/legendary-plane-designer-burt-rutan-tests-seaplane. Accessed 15 July 2024.

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“Burt Rutan.” New Mexico Museum of Space History, www.nmspacemuseum.org/inductee/burt-rutan. Accessed 15 July 2024.

Downie, Don, and Julia Downie. The Complete Guide to Rutan Aircraft. 3d ed., Blue Ridge Summit: Tab, 1987.

Grady, Mary. “A Legendary Airplane Designer Hints at His Next Creation.” Wired, 12 Mar. 2015, www.wired.com/2015/03/burt-rutan-skigull. Accessed 15 July 2024.

Howell, Elizabeth. “Burt Rutan: Scaled Composites Founder.” Space.com, 2 Jan. 2020, www.space.com/19404-burt-rutan.html. Accessed 15 July 2024.

Lennon, Andy. Canard: A Revolution in Flight. Hummelstown: Aviation, 1984.

Rollo, Vera A. Foster. Burt Rutan: Reinventing the Airplane. Lanham: Maryland Historical, 1991.

Yeager, Jeana, and Dick Rutan, with Phil Patton. Voyager. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.