Burt Rutan Retires From Scaled Composites

hondo77 writes "Lost in all of the April Fool's Day fun was the news that Burt Rutan retired on April 1. 'Five of his planes now hang in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, including the Voyager, which in 1986 became the first airplane to fly around the world without refueling, and SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the first private rocket plane ever to put a man into space.' Enjoy your retirement, Burt. You've earned it." Watching SpaceShipOne fly in 2004 is one of the happiest memories of my life. Thanks, Mr. Rutan.

Re:There are few aircraft designers left

[MaroonMotor]

All the current generation aeronautical engineers are cutting their systems design teeth on UAVs. The UAV situation is like what aircraft was in the 50's and 60's - They are relatively cheap and no one knows what the ideal/best configuration is. So you see dozens and dozens of quickly evolving designs all over the world. Aeronautical engineers are still getting trained, Just not so much on manned high performance aircraft.

It was a priviliege...

[CompMD]

I had the privilege of working on Rutan's Vantage jet doing design and S&C verification. At the time, I worked for the only man considered a peer to Rutan, Jan Roskam, though only those in the aerospace industry would know him. The Vantage was a great plane, and Rutan and his company earned my respect and admiration. The respect was mutual, and an engineer who studied under the president of the company I worked for went on to become a VP at Scaled.

Another poster mentioned how there is an obvious lack of good aircraft designers today. Being someone in the aerospace industry, I agree with that 100%. This isn't just a "darn, the kids these days" rant. There is a demonstrable lack of creativity and ability in the younger generation of aerospace engineers. Some of this may be due to a lack of progress in the field (NASA has gone to hell, the USAF doesn't need any more aircraft), some of it could be due to a lack of desire to put in the effort (which is tremendous) to become a great aerospace engineer. I wish I knew. Hopefully soon we will have some truly bright engineers come to the forefront of aircraft design.

So, let me say that it was a privilege to be in the industry both competing with and cooperating with you, Mr. Rutan. I don't know if I'll ever have such a chance again. Thank you for that, and for your contributions to aviation. Best of luck to you.