Burt & Dick Rutan’s Birthday Bash Gathers Canard Builders/Flyers

Coeur d’Alene, ID - Over 150 canard builders, flyers, family, & friends gathered in Coeur d’Alene, ID for the 8th Birthday Bash, celebrating the life & work of Burt Rutan, world-famous aircraft/space ship designer, and his brother, Dick Rutan, Vietnam fighter pilot and pilot of the Voyager during it’s non-stop, unrefueled around the world flight in 1986. The Bash, held every 5 years, was held at the Bird Aviation Museum and Invention Center and the Rutan’s Honey Badger Hangar at the Coeur D’Alene (KCOE) airport July 7-8, 2023. Jim Lamb flew his Rutan-designed Long-EZ over 2,100 miles to attend.

Burt Rutan 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 record-breaking Voyager, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest (342 mph in 67 hours) and longest (25,766 miles) nonstop, non-refueled around the world flight .In 2004, Rutan’s sub-orbital space plane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to pass the Kármán line (62 miles up) the border of space.

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.

Dick Rutan 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 with co-pilot Jeana Yeager.

Rutan flew 325 missions during the Vietnam War in F-100s as a Fast FAC, searching for and marking targets with white phosphorus rockets ahead of the strike package. He was shot down over N. Vietnam, but made it to the Gulf of Tonkin before ejecting, and was rescued. Rutan was awarded the Silver Star, 5 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 16 Air Medals, and a Purple Heart, retiring from the USAF in 1978. After the Air Force, he was a test pilot, flying aircraft as varied as the Fairchild T-46, the last aircraft designed by The Fairchild Co. and the XCOR EZ-Rocket, a rocket-powered Long-EZ, in which he set the world’s distance record for rocket powered flight, 9.9 miles.

Not tiring of long distance flight, in 1997 Rutan flew his personally-built Long-EZ, Old Blue, around the world with wingman, Mike Melville - with some legs of over 14 hours. He holds many records, including the FAI class C1b distance of 4,564 miles from Anchorage, AK to Grand Turk Island, on 1981.

During the Bash, Burt & Dick told stories from their varied careers, answered questions from attendees, posed for photos, and ate birthday cake. Burt showed his roadable airplane, the BiPod, and his SkiGull, an aircraft that can land on water, grass, snow, and pavement. He designed both after retirement from Scaled Composites in 2011. Rutan has designed 367 individual concepts - of which 45 have flown, and 6 are in the National Air & Space Museum.

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. Sources for this story include Wikipedia, BRAB (Burt Rutan autobiography), The Next Five Minutes, Burt Rutan’s Race to Space, and SCALED Composites Project Overview video.- 30 - Copyright © 2023 Electric Shadows, Inc.