Dick Rutan, pilot of the first nonstop around-the-world flight, has died

This is so sad, loss of a good pilot. I only saw Dick fly once, a group of us had flown our LongEz’s and VariEz’s down to Mojave for his brother, Burt Rutan’s birthday.

Dick took out his LongEz, and I realized he had more piloting skills in his little finger than I’d ever have. That plane did things at 100 feet that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing at 5000 feet.

People know him as 1 of the two who flew voyager, and the article on touches on a tiny fraction of the adventures he had in his life. Seemed like a life well lived.

Brother of Burt Rutan, designer of X Prize winning SpaceShipOne.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan

Amazing documentary about the around the world flight (4 parts on YouTube).

There are so many crazy parts to the flight. Just consider the takeoff where the wingtips were scraping the runway and one winglet fell off. Also that Rutan and Yeager just broke up and still did the flight together! The documentaey also has great 90s vibes.

https://youtu.be/MYW6X46qWG0?si=nft-iNsY2WisL7qZ

He died in my hometown.

I have met his brother Burt a few times at local events when he was around more. After looking at the pics I realized that was the guy I kept seeing around town that "looked like Burt Rutan" but wasn't him. Very likely I have met Dick as well at events but did not know who he was.

Sad to see...but what a life lived.

This is sad. I saw Voyager at Oshkosh 1987 for its last outdoor appearance and it was an influential experience to feel close to history.

Kinda feels like an era is ending in aerospace as his generation passes away. We went from all sorts of grandiose ideas to building nothing but quadcopter shaped objects because you don't need to understand aerodynamics to build a quadcopter.

The round-the-world trip took just over 9 days. What do you do up in the air in a tube with one other person for 9 days straight, especially when any nonessential payload could compromise your goal?

The Long-EZ is one of the most iconic planes ever created, in my book. I just watched one take off yesterday from my local airport.

RIP to the legendary Dick Rutan.

> His friend Bill Whittle said he died on his own terms when he decided against enduring a second night on oxygen after suffering a severe lung infection.

Lived on his terms, died on his terms.

Fly safe(-ish) and keep the blue side up.

FJ had stories that kept you asking what happened next. Hung out and did some flight training with Rutan in the late 90s, even got to fly the LongEZ back from ABQ once. Blue skies and tailwinds. RIP FJ.

Not to take anything away from the story’s content, but fuck that mobile site is bad, content jumping around made it virtually unreadable.