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HISTORY
Born in 1943 in Estacada,
Oregon, 30 miles southeast
of Portland, and raised in
Dinuba, California, Rutan
displayed an early interest
in aircraft design. By the
time he was eight years old
he was designing and
building model aircraft. His
first solo flight piloting
an airplane was in an
Aeronca Champ in 1959. In
1965 he graduated third in
his class from the
California Polytechnic State
University (Cal Poly-San
Luis Obispo) with a BS
degree in aeronautical
engineering.
From 1965 to 1972 Rutan was
a civilian flight test
project engineer for the
U.S. Air Force at Edwards
Air Force Base, working on
nine separate projects
including the LTV XC-142
VSTOL transport and spin
tests of the McDonnell
Douglas F-4 Phantom fighter.
He left to become Director
of Development of the BD-5
aircraft for Bede Aircraft
in Newton, Kansas, a
position he held until 1974.
Rutan returned to California
in June 1974, to create the
Rutan Aircraft Factory. In
this business he designed
and developed prototypes for
several aircraft, mostly
intended for amateur
builders. His first design,
executed while he was still
at Bede, was the VariViggen,
a two-seat pusher
single-engine craft of
canard configuration. The
canard would become a
feature of many Rutan
designs, notably the very
popular VariEze and Long-EZ.
In April 1982, Burt Rutan
founded Scaled Composites,
LLC, which has become one of
the world's pre-eminent
aircraft design and
prototyping facilities.
Scaled Composites is
headquartered in Mojave,
California, at the Mojave
Air & Space Port.
In 2005 he received the NAS
Award in Aeronautical
Engineering from the
National Academy of Sciences.
In
1982, Beechcraft contracted
Rutan's Scaled Composites to
refine the design and build
the prototype Beechcraft
Starship.
In a 2010 interview, Rutan
articulated his motivation
for developing suborbital
technology projects with
SpaceShipOne and
SpaceShipTwo. He was
developing suborbital
spaceflight technology
because in this "we can
achieve some breakthroughs,"
making such flight "orders
of magnitude safer and
orders of magnitude more
affordable. I'm taking this
step because I think
achieving something that has
never existed in manned
spaceflight – and that is
high volume
and
public access
– I think it is important to
do that and to do it as soon
as possible."
He retired from Scaled
Composites in April, 2011.
Source:
Wikipedia
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