Burt Rutan - Reinventing the Airplane
by Vera Foster Rollo
289 Pages - hard cover             $24.50

A biography of Burt Rutan from his early designs through the Ares, Pond Racer, and Pegasus cruise missle. Covers Burts design influences, his development of composite materials, and the evolution of his historical accomplishments. Lots of coverage is given to the early Variviggen, the Vari-Ez / Long Ez designs, the Beech Starship, and of course the inside story behind the Voyager round-the-world effort. An interesting history of the man who has had the most influence in the craft we are flying today, since the Wright Brothers. It's a fun and enjoyable read, even if your not building with that "other" material.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
As the World Watched                    1
Growing Up                              6
The Rutan ancestry                     13
The man who saved the Phantom          23
Working for Bede                       27
The Variviggen design                  32
Pioneering in composites               39
The "mind-boggler" design              44
A sensation at Oshkosh                 50
Homebuilders and the EA                57
Design pioneer                         63
Problems and solutions                 65
The AD-1 "skew wing" airplane          70
Mojave desert - air frontier           72
Homebuilders make planes               80
The great years of design              84
1978 - a potpourri of events           88
Dick Rutan                             94
The RAF team expands                   98
The Long-EZ; design to success        106
A pivotal year                        110
Patricia Storch                       117
Suprising new designs 1981-'82        121
Voyager idea emerges                  133
Scaled Composites company             138
The Grizzly, model 72                 141
RAF and Scaled                        144
Enter Beech aircraft                  152
1983 and changes                      155
Voyager's first flight                160
1985 - adventures and changes         167
A society wedding                     171
Rutan and the homebuilt movement      174
Jeanna Yeager                         177
The year of the Voyager               180
Voyager takeoff roll - Wow            184
The inside story of Voyager           194
The Beech Starship                    208
The "Mojave Yacht Club"               218
Worldwide; pilots fly Rutan designs   225
Rutan revises Pentagon thinking       232
The Pond Racer                        241
Into the '90s                         246
Rutan innovations                     258
Comparison with Wright brothers       262
The future                            266