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Aviation History
1982
1982 - 0221.PDF
Typically, Burt Rutan has responded to the requirement in a manner which may look terrifying to the un initiated, but which in fact reflects an uncompromising search for perform ance. The Voyager design starts where Burt Rutan's Defiant stopped. Like Defiant, the Voyager is a push-pull twin with a canard layout, so that the fore-and-aft lifting surfaces coincide with the weight concentrations (the engines) in the fuselage. The wing is unswept, has extremely high aspect ratio and spans more than 100ft. On a conventionally designed aircraft, so slender a wing would be so heavy that its aerodynamic efficiency would be cancelled out, but Rutan has re lieved bending loads by putting most composite aircraft is covered with stressed sandwich skins, with carbon- fibre inner and outer skins bonded to foam cores of varying thickness and density (some of the cores are only 0-25in thick) and cured in the auto clave. All available space in the air craft—even in the foreplane—is used for fuel. Rutan declines to reveal the fuel capacity of the aircraft, or its weight, saying only that other pub lished figures (1,400 US gal and 10,0001b TOW) are not accurate. The Rutan brothers place the Quickie contender in the same cate gory as the BD-2, renamed the Phoenix for December's record-break ing flight by Jerry Mullens. "They'll maybe get half-way around," Dick Rutan commented to Flight, "but Top left Big Bird, Quickie Aircraft's prototype, is nearing its first flight at Mojave. Above The Phoenix paved the way for mammoth long-distance solo flights last month with a closed-circuit, non-stop flight of 10,070 miles in 73hr Imin. It is an updated version of Jim Bede's original BD-2; a military drone or reconnaissance development has been proposed of the fuel in massive mid-span tanks, each as long as the centre fuselage. These "outriggers" carry fins and rudders at the rear, and are connected to the long-span foreplane at the front. In this way Rutan has been able to approach the perfectly optimised spanwise loading of a flying wing, without the associated problems of stability and wing design. Voyager is designed for a still-air range of 28,000 miles on standard avgas, cruising at lOOkt or less. The substantial margin of extra range will give Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager the freedom to detour around any bad weather rather than abort ing; the low cruise altitude means that only 24hr worth of oxygen need be carried (so that the aircraft can fly over bad weather if convenient); while natural breathing and a crew of two reduce human stresses. Both engines will be used for take off, climb, and initial cruise, but as the weight of the aircraft decreases one engine will be shut down (an ad vantage unique to a tandem layout). Navigation will be by VLF Omega with Dick Rutan's sextant as a back up, although Rutan notes that naviga tion on a non-stop global flight is not as critical as in some other opera tions: "You're not trying to hit some little island." Voyager is now under construction, but Dick Rutan declines to specify when it will be ready to go, beyond saying that he expects to fly the air craft within a year. Most of the all- FUGHT International, 30 January 1982 we're goin' to be first around the world." The Phoenix was originally built for Jim Bede by Javelin Aircraft of Kansas, and made its first flight as the BD-2 in March 1967. Javelin updated and modified the aircraft for its 10,070-mile record flight in December, and is now considering whether to embark on series modification of Schweitzer 2-32 parts into production aircraft. According to Dave Blanton, presi dent of Javelin, the Phoenix has a potential range of 24,500 miles in still air, but he tells Flight that there are no plans for a circumnavigation: according to Blanton and pilot Jerry Mullens, the risks of such a flight in a single-engined aircraft are simply un acceptable. "Dick Rutan's aircraft is the way to go," says Blanton. "They have an aircraft which will do the job." He is sceptical of Quickie's per formance predictions for Big Bird, which has a considerably shorter span than the Phoenix. Jerry Mullen's flight in the Phoenix on December 5-8 is claimed as a closed-circuit distance record for piston-engined aircraft (the previous record was 8,854-3 miles, set by a B-29 in August 1947) as well as an absolute solo distance and endurance record, both previously held by Jim Bede in the same aircraft. The dis tance comprised five laps of a 2,014- mile course from the start-and-finish point at Will Rogers airport, Okla homa City, to Jacksonville, Florida, and the flight took 73hr 2min. Clearly, the Phoenix would have much greater range in a straight line with a con sistent tailwind, while its operating altitude is adequate to exploit the Jetstream. Mullens has offered the air craft to the National Air and Space Museum, and apparently plans one more record flight before retiring the 15-year-old aircraft. Meanwhile, Javelin is proposing a development of the BD-2 for the US Air Force Comfy Bee drone/low-cost reconnaissance project. The developed Javelin T200A would have spoilers and a conventional landing gear and would lack the extended fuel-carrying wingtips of the Phoenix. The T200A is also expected to have some export potential as a long-endurance drone or piloted surveillance aircraft, and would cost about $250,000 fully equipped. With a turbocharged engine it would be capable of cruising at 40,000ft. With the Phoenix apparently out of the global race, however, attention is focused on the two contenders at Mojave. Will Jewett's Big Bird man age to set a new straight-line record, or even make the first circumnaviga tion before the Rutan giant can fly, or will the slower approach of the Voyager team prove more successful? Either way, it seems unlikely that the record for absolute distance will sur vive 1982 by very long. Briefings... After several months of gloomy speculation, Wycombe Air Park, one of the UK's principal light-aviation centres, now has a more assured future. Airways Aero Associates (a British Airways subsidiary) will con tinue to run the airfield under the re maining 32-year lease from Wycombe District Council, and plans to re surface the main runway this year as well as to carry out other improve ments to hangars and buildings. Wycombe, west of London, has for several years successfully combined Briefings... a busy power-flying and gliding opera tion, and this should now be de veloped further with the encourage ment of the local council, which sees the airfield as a valuable local amenity. Wycombe Air Centre is to add an air taxi operation to its CAA- approved flying school, operated alongside the separate British Air ways Flying Club. Historic aircraft specialist Personal Plane Services, Wycombe Gliding School, and Chil- tern Sailplanes are the other principal operators. 215
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