Rutan Voyager
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The Rutan Model 76 Voyager was the first
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. It was piloted by
Dick Rutan Richard Glenn Rutan (born July 1, 1938) is a retired United States Air Force officer and fighter pilot, test pilot, and record-breaking aviator who in 1986 piloted the Voyager aircraft on the first non-stop, non-refueled around-the-world flight w ...
and
Jeana Yeager Jeana Lee Yeager (born May 18, 1952) is an American aviator. She co-piloted, along with Dick Rutan, the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager aircraft from December 14 to 23, 1986. The flight took 9 days, 3 m ...
. The flight took off from Edwards Air Force Base's 15,000 foot (4,600 m) runway in the
Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...
on December 14, 1986, and ended 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds later on December 23, setting a
flight endurance record The flight endurance record is the longest amount of time an aircraft of a particular category spent in flight without landing. It can be a solo event, or multiple people can take turns piloting the aircraft, as long as all pilots remain in the ai ...
. The aircraft flew westerly 26,366 statute miles (42,432 km; the FAI accredited distance is 40,212 km) at an average altitude of 11,000 feet (3,350 m).


Design and development

The aircraft was first imagined by
Burt Rutan Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the recor ...
and Burt's brother
Dick Rutan Richard Glenn Rutan (born July 1, 1938) is a retired United States Air Force officer and fighter pilot, test pilot, and record-breaking aviator who in 1986 piloted the Voyager aircraft on the first non-stop, non-refueled around-the-world flight w ...
in 1980. Burt sketched his concept for the aircraft for Dick and
Jeana Yeager Jeana Lee Yeager (born May 18, 1952) is an American aviator. She co-piloted, along with Dick Rutan, the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager aircraft from December 14 to 23, 1986. The flight took 9 days, 3 m ...
during a lunch in 1981. The idea was sketched out on the back of a napkin. Voyager was built in
Mojave, California Mojave (formerly Mohave) is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Kern County, California, United States. Mojave is located east of Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield, and north of Los Angeles, at an elevation of . The town is ...
over a period of five years, mainly by volunteers working under both the Rutan Aircraft Factory and an organization named Voyager Aircraft.
Burt Rutan Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the recor ...
served as the lead designer for the project. The
airframe The mechanical structure of an aircraft is known as the airframe. This structure is typically considered to include the fuselage, undercarriage, empennage and wings, and excludes the propulsion system. Airframe design is a field of aerospa ...
made of
fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...
,
carbon fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...
, and
Kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s a ...
weighed when empty. With the engines included, the unladen weight of the plane was . However, when it was fully loaded before the historic flight it weighed due to the amount of fuel required for the long-distance flight.Rutan VoyagerSmithsonian National Air and Space Museum
The aircraft had an estimated
lift-to-drag ratio In aerodynamics, the lift-to-drag ratio (or L/D ratio) is the lift generated by an aerodynamic body such as an aerofoil or aircraft, divided by the aerodynamic drag caused by moving through air. It describes the aerodynamic efficiency under gi ...
(L/D) of 27. The canard and wing airfoils were custom-designed, and the aircraft was analyzed using
computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate th ...
.
Vortex generator A vortex generator (VG) is an aerodynamic device, consisting of a small vane usually attached to a lifting surface (or airfoil, such as an aircraft wing) or a rotor blade of a wind turbine.
s were added to the canard to reduce sensitivity to surface contamination by rain. Voyager had front and rear propellers, powered by separate engines. It was originally flown on June 22, 1984, powered by
Lycoming O-235 The Lycoming O-235 is a family of four-cylinder, air-cooled, horizontally opposed piston aircraft engines that produce , derived from the earlier O-233 engine.Textron Lycoming: ''Operator's Manual, Textron Lycoming Aircraft Engines, Series O-23 ...
engines with fixed-pitch propellers. In November 1985, the aircraft was rolled out, fitted with world-flight engines, an air-cooled Teledyne Continental O-240 in the forward location and a liquid-cooled Teledyne Continental IOL-200 in the aft location. Both were firstly fitted with wooden, variable-pitch electrically actuated
MT-Propeller MT-Propeller Entwicklung GmbH, founded in 1980 by Gerd Muehlbauer, is a manufacturer of composite propellers for single and twin engine aircraft, airships, wind tunnels and other special applications.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Airc ...
s. The plan was for the rear engine to be operated throughout the flight. The front engine was intended to provide additional power for takeoff and the initial part of the flight under heavy load. On July 15, 1986, Dick Rutan and Yeager completed a test flight off the coast of California, in which they flew for 111 hours and 44 minutes, traveling in twenty circuits between
San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo (; Spanish for " St. Louis the Bishop", ; Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly hal ...
and
Stewarts Point, California Stewarts Point is an unincorporated community in Sonoma County, California, United States and part of the "historic" Salt Point Township. Stewarts Point is located on the Pacific coast and California State Route 1, west of Healdsburg. Stewarts ...
, breaking the previous record held since 28 May 1931 by a
Bellanca CH-300 The Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker was a six-seat utility aircraft, built primarily in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. It was a development of the Bellanca CH-200, fitted with a more powerful engine and, like the CH-200, soon became renowne ...
fitted with a
Packard DR-980 The Packard DR-980 is an American nine-cylinder air-cooled aircraft Diesel engine first certificated in 1930. The engine was unpopular despite its economy and reliability due to the unpleasant nature of its diesel exhaust fumes an ...
diesel engine, piloted by Walter Edwin Lees and Frederic Brossy which had set a record by staying aloft for 84 hours and 32 minutes without being refueled. The first attempt at the Voyager test flight had been marred by the failure of a propeller pitch-change motor and an emergency landing at
Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USS General Harry Taylor (AP-145), USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in K ...
. On a test flight on September 29, 1986, the airplane had to make an emergency landing due to a propeller blade departing the aircraft. As a result, the decision was made to switch to aluminium Hartzell hydraulically actuated propellers. In a crash program, Hartzell made custom propellers for the aircraft, which were first flown on November 15, 1986.Roncz, John G., "Propeller Development for the Rutan Voyager", SAE paper 891034, presented at the SAE General Aviation Aircraft Meeting & Exposition, Wichita, Kansas, April 1989.


World flight

Voyager's world flight takeoff took place on the longest runway at
Edwards AFB Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is Ed ...
at 8:01 am local time on December 14, 1986, with 3,500 of the world's press in attendance. As the plane accelerated, the tips of the wings, which were heavily loaded with
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...
, were damaged as they unexpectedly flew down and scraped against the runway, ultimately causing pieces (winglets) to break off at both ends (the pilot had wanted to gain enough speed that the inner wings, rather than the fragile outer wings, would lift the plane; in 67 test flights, the plane had never been loaded to capacity). The aircraft accelerated very slowly and needed approximately 14,200 feet (2.7 mi; 4.3 km) of the runway to gain enough speed to lift from the ground, the wings arching up dramatically just before take-off. The two damaged winglets remained attached to the wings by only a thin layer of carbon fiber and were removed by flying the Voyager in a
slip Slip or SLIP may refer to: Science and technology Biology * Slip (fish), also known as Black Sole * Slip (horticulture), a small cutting of a plant as a specimen or for grafting * Muscle slip, a branching of a muscle, in anatomy Computing and ...
, which introduced side-loading, tearing the winglets off completely. Some of the carbon fiber skin was pulled off in the process, exposing the blue foam core. Burt Rutan following with pilot
Mike Melvill Michael Winston Melvill (born November 30, 1940 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a world-record-breaking pilot and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShipO ...
determined that Voyager was still within its performance specifications despite the damage and decided to allow the flight to continue. During the flight, the two pilots had to deal with extremely cramped quarters. To reduce stress, the two had originally intended to fly the plane in three-hour shifts, but flight handling characteristics while the plane was heavy prevented routine changeovers, and they became very fatigued. Dick Rutan reportedly stayed at the controls without relief for almost the first three days of the flight. The plane also continuously reminded the pilots of its pitch instability and fragility. They had to maneuver around bad weather numerous times, most perilously around the Typhoon Marge.Joint Typhoon Warning Center (1987)
Chapter 3: Northwest Pacific and North Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclones
. Retrieved on 2007-12-19.
Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
denied access to the country's
airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...
in response to
Operation El Dorado Canyon The 1986 United States bombing of Libya, code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon, consisted of air strikes by the United States against Libya on Tuesday 15 April 1986. The attack was carried out by the U.S. Air Force (USAF), U.S. Navy and U.S. M ...
earlier that year. There were contentious radio conversations between the Rutan brothers as Dick flew around weather and, at one time, turned around and began doubling back. As they neared
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
to land, a
fuel pump A fuel pump is a component in motor vehicles that transfers liquid from the fuel tank to the carburetor or fuel injector of the internal combustion engine. Carbureted engines often use low pressure mechanical pumps that are mounted outside the f ...
failed and had to be replaced with its twin pumping fuel from the other side of the aircraft. In front of 55,000 spectators and a large press contingent, including 23 live feeds breaking into scheduled broadcasting across Europe and North America, the plane safely came back to earth, touching down at 8:06 a.m. at the same airfield 9 days after take-off. Rutan made three low passes over the landing field before putting Voyager down. The average speed for the flight was . There were of fuel remaining in the tanks, only about 1.5% of the fuel they had at take-off. Sanctioned by the FAI and the
AOPA The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is a Frederick, Maryland-based American non-profit political organization that advocates for general aviation. AOPA's membership consists mainly of general aviation pilots in the United States ...
, the flight was the first successful aerial nonstop, non-refueled circumnavigation of the Earth that included two passes over the Equator (as opposed to shorter ostensible "circumnavigations" circling the North or South Pole). This feat has since been accomplished only one other time, by
Steve Fossett James Stephen Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraf ...
in the Global Flyer (also designed by Rutan). For the feat, Yeager, the Rutans, and crew chief/builder Bruce Evans received the 1986
Collier Trophy The Robert J. Collier Trophy is an annual aviation award administered by the U.S. National Aeronautic Association (NAA), presented to those who have made "the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to im ...
., p. 84.


Specifications


See also

* List of aircraft designed by Burt Rutan


References


Notes


Bibliography

* David H. Onkst
Dick Rutan, Jeana Yeager, and the Flight of the Voyager
U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. * * *


External links


Flight path
{{Authority control Voyager 1980s United States experimental aircraft Individual aircraft in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution Canard aircraft Twin-engined push-pull aircraft Twin-boom aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1984 Circumnavigations