Page 6 - Aerotech News and Review, December 3, 2021

Voyager round-the-world flight was 35 years ago

on winds and weather, which is really
by Cathy Hansen
special to Aerotech News backwards to all you guys that fly,”
Rutan said. “Normally you plot your
There are so many important avia- course first, but we couldn’t.” The
tion dates to remember in the month of Voyager had a feather light, composite
December. The Wright Brothers first structure with a thin skin and even in
powered flight was on Dec. 17, 1903, very light turbulence the wings would
the first glide flight of SpaceShipOne flex and bend. We had meteorologists
was Dec. 17, 2003, on the 100th an- in the Voyage Command Trailer keep-
niversary of the Wright Brothers his- ing track of storms and weather for us.
toric flight; and the flight of Voyager The fragile experimental aircraft
between Dec. 14 and Dec. 23, 1986. weighed 939 pounds and carried more
The Mojave Transportation Mu- than 7,000 pounds of fuel in its sev-
seum monthly Plane Crazy Saturday enteen fuel tanks for the historic non-
event will honor designer Burt Rutan; stop flight around the world. Its gross
Command Pilot, Dick Rutan; Pilot takeoff weight for the world flight was
Jeana Yeager and Voyager Crew Chief 9,694.5 pounds, of which 7,011 pounds
Bruce Evans on Dec. 18, 2021 at Mo- was fuel. When the flight ended nine
jave Air and Space Port. Check www. days, 3-minutes and 44-seconds later,
mojavemuseum.org for additional in- only 140 pounds of fuel remained.
formation. “Voyager One, this is Edwards
The epic flight of Voyager was a Tower. ATC clears Voyager One from
landmark in aerospace history and Edwards Air Force Base to Edwards
a testament to the American Spirit. Air Force Base via flight plan route.
Voyager’s flight, with Command Pilot Maintain 8,000 feet. Cleared for take-
Dick Rutan and Pilot Jeana Yeager, off and Godspeed.”
was the first-ever, non-stop, unrefueled The takeoff on Dec. 14 was al-
flight around the world. This milestone most catastrophic, as the wings were
flight took 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 bending down and the wingtips were
seconds. The absolute world distance dragging on the 15,000-foot runway.
records set during that flight remain The wingtips were severely damaged.
unchallenged today. To this day, no Mike and Sally Melvill and Burt Ru-
aircraft has flown more air miles than tan were flying in a Duchess aircraft
the Voyager’s 26,358 statute miles. nearby and Mike informed Dick that Courtesy photograph
In 2017, the 31st anniversary of the he would have to get rid of the dam- The Voyager aircraft on its round-the-world record-breaking flight.
Voyager flight, Dick Rutan spoke at aged winglets.
Plane Crazy Saturday at Mojave Air Dick applied right rudder to side- the winglet release. After trying a sec- navigated around terrible weather and ing drag, however the windmilling was
& Spaceport. “The flight was based slip the aircraft in an effort to make ond time, the winglet fluttered away thunder storms, avoided hostile coun- the only way to start that engine if they
and the left winglet came off a short tries threatening to shoot them down, could get the fuel to flow again.
time later. There were fears that the worried about having enough fuel and Mike Melvill’s calm voice from
winglets tearing off might cause dam- most of the time ran only one of the Mojave encouraged Rutan to start the
age to the fuel cells in the wings, but two engines to conserve fuel, and suf- front engine, the only engine with a
it did not. fered with sleep deprivation. starter. When they were only 3,500 feet
The second day, Dec. 16, was spent After resolving various mechanical over the water the front engine came
dodging Typhoon Marge and the bands issues, this intrepid team were on the to life and as they leveled out, fuel had
of storms between Wake Island and the last leg of the flight, flying near the tip run to the rear engine and it was run-
Marshal Islands. They made their way of the Baja Peninsula at night, they ning too. They leaned the front engine
through a wall of weather and actually were transferring fuel when the electri- as much as possible, but left it running.
picked up a tailwind. cal transfer pump failed. The rear en- There was concern about using more
By day four they were half way gine coughed and stopped running due
around the world over Sri Lanka. to an air bubble in the line. Exhausted, fuel, but fear and tribulation, turned
When the Voyager crew called Air the two pilots had to deal with another into joy as they were passing near San
Traffic Control (ATC), they asked the life threatening problem. The rear Diego and airliner pilots started send-
routine questions, what type aircraft, propeller was windmilling and creat- See VOYAGER, Page 7
point of origin and destination. Ru-
tan replied type aircraft was Voyager,
flight originated KEDW (Edwards)
and destination KEDW (Edwards).
ATC didn’t believe they were on a
world flight and admonished the pilots
for such a story. After that experience,
Rutan requested that all communica-
tion with ATC’s would be handled by
the folks in the Voyager Command
Trailer in Mojave. “Our phone bill was
really high with all of the long distance
phone calls,” remarked Rutan.
Later that day, Voyager broke the
absolute world distance record of 12,
532 statute miles that had been set by
a B-52 in 1962.
Dick recalled looking down and
seeing a long beautiful runway and
remembered thinking, oh how nice it
would be to land and be able to sleep.
But he heard a voice in his head say-
ing, “If you can dream it, you can do
it. The only way to fail is to quit!” The
voice was that of his mother, Irene Ru-
tan. He said, “I knew we had to keep
Courtesy photograph Courtesy photograph
Dick Rutan holds a model of the Voyager aircraft. going.” Mike Melvill (left) and Burt Rutan.
During this milestone flight, they

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