Aerotech News and Review, Jan. 6 2017

Defense News
Celebrating Voyager's 30th anniversary
Photograph by Linda KC Reynolds
Main: On Dec. 23, 1986, Voyager completed the first nonstop, non-refueled flight around the world. Inset: Voyager aircraft designer Burt Rutan, test pilot Mike Melvill and Voyager pilot Dick Rutan share a few stories about their adventures with the Voyager at the Mojave Air and Space Port, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the historic flight around the world.
Photograph courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution
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by Linda KC Reynolds
staff writer
Sharing memories that seemed as fresh today as the events that happened nearly 30 years ago, friends and fans gathered in the Voyager Restaurant at the Mojave Air and Space Port Dec. 17 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the unrefueled and non-stop, around-the-world, record setting flight of the Voyager experimental airplane.
Gathered around packed tables, there was barely standing room (with a few guests sitting on the floor) as they listened to Voy- ager pilot Dick Rutan, his brother Burt, designer of Voyager, and the world’s first civilian astronaut Mike Melvill and his wife Sally Melvill, as they shared their memories of the historic flight. Voyager co-pilot Jeana Yeager was unable to attend the event.
“This is not a project where we went out and got a multi- billionaire to write us a big check, it was a whole bunch of very,
January 6, 2017 • Volume 30, Issue 21
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very talented people that made this possible,” explained Dick Rutan.
Reflecting back over the years, Rutan said he doesn’t think the flight would have been possible if just one of those volunteers hadn’t shown up.
Sharing more of the emotional aspects of the adventure than they did the technical challenges, the speakers often took a mo- ment to compose themselves as they recalled some of their big- gest fears.
The Voyager had taken approximately six years to build and flight test. It had flown a total of 360 hours during 68 flights before the record setting flight. “Seven times it had a failure and couldn’t maintain altitude,” explained Burt Rutan, speaking about why he feared he might not ever see his brother alive again.
Designed for maximum fuel efficiency, Voyager had a feath-
See VOYAGER, Page 3
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