I built a Vari-Eze in 1977-78 and met Burt, Dick and Mike at that time. Watching this interview brought back good vibes with a man that I have admired since the first time I saw him at Oshkosk when he came with the original VW Vari-Eze in 1975. I have a prop off of the prototype O-200 Vari-Eze in the corner of my living room that Burt sent me when I finished my EZ but couldn't get a prop. He sent it with a note saying that the prop was a dog but that it would fly my plane until I got a better prop.
@EllipsisAircraft10 ай бұрын
❤
@n539rv Жыл бұрын
Well done! Having built my Long-EZ and flown it 22 yrs, I got to know a lot of the canard folks. The 70’s-90’s was a GREAT time!
@BaumannJA Жыл бұрын
It is ALWAYS a privilege to get the opportunity to be audience to Genius. Burt Rutan is a Modern day Thomas Edison, Henry Ford or Frank Lloyd Wright. You find yourself hanging on their every word because they are telling things from a totally different perceptive than we are used to. Burt's contributions to Aviation are far under appreciated.
@vaughnharris6404 Жыл бұрын
i flew LONG-EZ 97WP FOR 9 YEARS...SUCH A BEAUTIFUL EXCITING EFFICIENT PLANE!!!! this man is thee aviation legend of our time..didnt matter where i went as soon as my electric retract started down people came out to check this beautiful very different aircraft...it was my favorite posession in my life....
@MrFloneil11 ай бұрын
Thank you for getting this interview with Burt and thank you Burt for doing it. If you read this, this is always a delight to hear your stories. And you're a huge inspiration for us younger folks.
@cherylgoodwin4798 Жыл бұрын
Thanks so much for bringing this amazing human being onto your show. What an inspiration to all!!!
@rvrrunner Жыл бұрын
Fantastic Video! I was reluctant to watch a KZbin video for over an hour but could not stop watching Burt go through the history of so many of his unique designs. Thank you Burt!
@zachansen829311 ай бұрын
Holy fricking awesome interview, thank you for spending the time to let him tell his stories. I hope you manage to find another 8 hours to talk to him about his life's work.
@KarthikSharmaWanderer87 Жыл бұрын
@socialflight Thank you very much for interviewing Burt Rutan as he shared his experiences over the period before & after his retirement. How ever at 1:20:11, Burt was seen to be disappointed to see the interview is going to be ended. Definitely we all can see he has zeal to share his experience and wisdom he gained. As Burt has mentioned he is not travelling but he is open to visitors, I humbly suggest you to make trip to his home, record all his experiences and what he wants to share to the aviation community, as Burt mentioned he has bad ticker. You could probably record the best memories of his life and as his followers and well wishers we all can cherish on his memories through your recordings. Not everyone will get the opportunity as you got to speak to such legends. And not all of can afford to do so. Thank you once again for interviewing Burt.
@davejob630 Жыл бұрын
Thankyou Burt, for your contribution to humanity. And thanks for being a good bloke!
@JavierChiappa Жыл бұрын
Man, this interview was awesome. I truly admire Burt, hope one day i can build a Long-EZ. His designs are wonderful, i think future spaceships will all look like his planes. Love those round windows! It would be a pleasure to sit with him looking at the lake and talking planes!
@mikem.s.11837 ай бұрын
Ever since an interview and later an old documentary (mid-90s) about his concepts, I became a fan of this brilliant aircraft designer. A million thanks for this video, @SocialFlight. Subbed for the interviews with the Rutan brothers.
@Helicopterpilot16 Жыл бұрын
It's funny Burt said, "if you go to the Air Force museum, plan to be there at least 4 days". In 2015 I was driving from south Florida back to Minneapolis. I didn't plan on making the trip quick, I stopped at Robbins AFB to see my first SR-72. 3rd day of my trip I wasn't ready to go home so I set course for the Air Force museum. I didn't plan on it but I did indeed stay for 4 days. I brought with my Nikon but, through those days I kept going back to their local camera store to buy more equipment to get better shots. 3rd day in I learned about the RND hangar which required a bus to see. That's where the XB-70 was. Because of how they had it set up, I was able to walk up right underneath it. Even the YF-12 I was able to walk right up to it with no barriers. But by far my favorite was actually walking up to the X-29 and I'm sure Burt appreciated that design in his own way. I've always wished to meet Burt at Oshkosh I but never get the chance. Brilliant interview!
@ushouldntjudgeme3683 Жыл бұрын
Such a humble expert in aviation and space ships. Respect!
@larrysouthern509811 ай бұрын
Thank you Burt!! You are my hero... I get inpired by your grit!!!
@coastalbbq110 ай бұрын
Been a Rutan fan since picking up my first copy of Kitplanes as an aerospace eng, student at Ga Tech in the 80s.
@Malzanar2010 Жыл бұрын
It’s amazing how timeless his designs look. Even the ones from the 60s and 70s look like they’d fit right in if they were to debut today.
@kabuti2839 Жыл бұрын
Great interview, Thanks!
@fltof2 Жыл бұрын
Great interview! Burt is a modern-day Wright brother. Only he designed so many more airplanes. Michelangelo of flying things.
@grahamtaylor3580 Жыл бұрын
Excellent and really interesting program with one of the true pioneers in aerospace. Big thinker outside the box.
@waynebooker498 Жыл бұрын
Burt's aeronautical design powers are derived from his sideburns.
@jwpipes47 Жыл бұрын
I've always wanted to meet Burt Rutan. The Starship is my absolute favorite aircraft ever made. I wish there could be a modern revival.
@arcanondrum6543 Жыл бұрын
I'm not a fan of the Rutan Starship, nor am I particularly impressed by Rutan. All the world looks like a nail to a hammer or a canard to Rutan. The Starship was beaten, fair and square, in takeoff distance, interior cabin dimensions, range, speed, etc. by the King Air. You can always appeal to people when you tell them what they want to hear. I won't be arguing this point very much, I will let the facts speak for themselves as I concentrate on other, more important tasks. If anyone is sincere, just please find out for yourselves. By the way, Virgin Atlantic has been criticized by some for "not reaching space". I did witness a moment of weightlessness in a video (possible in the transition to free-fall, it's also possible when flying parobolic arcs as used in the 'vomit comet" flights for astronaut training). The "darkness of space" did not fill the cabin of the one video I recall watching but THAT issue is for others to research, ponder and debate. Finally, Rutan's around the world without refueling flight is worth something to look at - for positive reasons.
@johntenhave111 ай бұрын
@@arcanondrum6543 Your comment could equally applied to your own incorrect bias. Have you not realised the vast number of non canard aircraft he has designed? Best you go educate yourself - unless of course you prefer the comfort of your ignorance.
@arcanondrum654311 ай бұрын
@@johntenhave1 Oh, you want clarification. Okay. Just like flying a canard is virtually stall-proof, designing one with good thrust-to-weight is nearly idiot-proof. With the exception of the round-the-world aircraft with no refueling, all Rutan non-canard designs were both design flops and commercial flops. And for those who really DO care; Plug "Burt Rutan aircraft design list" into a search engine then RESEARCH the aircraft. Don't use information from fan boys like johntoonhavenot, find out why Beechcraft scrapped the Starship hulls, why Adam Aircraft had a fuel to weight problem. Why the Pentagon kept saying "no" to a "genius" like Rutan despite some pretty great and some very crappy DoD projects from many other designers being greenlighted.
@EllipsisAircraft10 ай бұрын
All Burt Rutan designs incorporate novel solutions to exceeding complex and difficult problems. Natural/inherent stall-limiting for Amateur-built and flown aircraft. Including VariViggen, Vari-EZ, Long-EZ, Quickie, and Defiant. Grizzly and Catbird showed the world the benefits of 3-surface aircraft. Boomerang is not a canard, but was also stall-proof and could be flown hands off while single engine; unheard of. Every Rutan design, except Voyager, flew really great. To say that he is not a genius with a track record of predicting good flying qualities is ridiculous. That is THE HARDEST thing to do in aeronautical design. Thrust to weight ratio has nothing at all to do with aircraft configuration, and it is literally foolproof on any design if the initial requirements aren't too preposterous. People talk down on Starship. But it is the only FAA certified aircraft in existence that has never had an AD issued for it. After 35+ years. Which is remarkable. When it was the first all-composite which paved the way for the certification process of composites used by Boeing and Cirrus now.
@arcanondrum654310 ай бұрын
@@EllipsisAircraft Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the first successful Canard and the first successful 3 surface aircraft. Neither of them ever heard of Burp Rutan. The "6-8 passengers" of the Starship, when reduced by half, still resulted in about 60% of the published range of the Starship. More passengers? Now you're describing a short hop where climbing to 41,000 feet then back down again wastes time and fuel. That combined with a TOTAL fleet of just 6 (or less) aircraft flying only since 1989 versus the number of King Air still in service, the King Air repeatedly reaching its maximum flight level AND flying since they were first introduced in 1964 has much more to do with stress fatigue than any "contribution" from Rutan. You named several aircraft that never drew enough interest and so, never left the development stage. Given that cutting up Starship Hulls at great expense to Beechcraft (a company that knows something about aviation) and given that the Adam 500 was an even more spectacular failure, I'm just not inclined to believe any claims about the Boomerang. Rutan has a way of getting people who know very little about aviation to admire him and Rutan has always found someone else to blame for his failures. I simply don't trust anything about his aircraft that can't be proven.
@usaerospace67075 ай бұрын
What a great Designer! Burt Rutan is Gods gift to aviation.
@TechOttawa3 ай бұрын
A historic interview of a historic individual. Everyone should have crooked bookshelves now! 🙂
@Gmoney_72 Жыл бұрын
I wish he would come full circle and offer us another home build.
@EllipsisAircraft10 ай бұрын
Quickie, Vari-EZ, Long-EZ, Defiant are out there. Catbird and Boomerang showed how it could be done.
@dermick Жыл бұрын
I think this interview needed about 3 more hours - so much to talk about. Well done!
@jasonvanevery5594 Жыл бұрын
Amazing story about the F-4 spin recovery! I learned a little about the flight test days from Mike Montefusco the other day. He said that he worked across the hall from Mr. Rutan. Must have been amazing to be there then. Thank you for the Long-EZ! I am restoring N455EZ to her former glory. I'm hoping she is on EZ street next year at Oshkosh.
@ahbushnell1 Жыл бұрын
A guy I worked with worked with him at Edwards. They would go out with his old station wagon that had flight surfaces mounted on the top of the car and do testing. There was a hole in the roof for that. This was for his home grown planes.
@mikeconnery465211 ай бұрын
Great interview and I've always been a fan of Burt Rutans ideas.
@AlejandroIrausquin Жыл бұрын
Thanks, thanks, many thanks! We are working in a spanish podcast on Burt, and these updates by the man himself are highly welcome!
@dwightlarson6449 Жыл бұрын
great interview......thank you
@tomspahr3013 Жыл бұрын
When I was stationed at Castle AFB in June of 1980 and before they closed Atwater A 1:29:23 irport, I remember seeing aircraft that looked like some of his airplanes . Did he ever fly out of Atwater Airport in the early?
@billdunne52668 ай бұрын
brilliant interview,history in the making.
@Agwings19604 ай бұрын
A aeronautical genius and a legend in his own lifetime
@billrbca Жыл бұрын
I always thought the quickie was my favorite, Burt has forgotten more than we will know about aeronautics
@Mtlmshr Жыл бұрын
Even though I’m not the biggest fan of Burt I must say that he will definitely go down in aviation history as one of the most ingenious aircraft designers of all time.
@pilotmiami1 Жыл бұрын
Bravo.perfect
@SooperToober9 ай бұрын
Brilliant
@DAVIDPETERS12C7 ай бұрын
That inspiring sound of a B-36 passing overhead can be heard in the Jimmy Stewart movie 'Strategic Air Command.' You'll get maybe the same feeling from the movie.
@paulhorn266511 ай бұрын
He is the mad scientist.
@seantiz4 ай бұрын
Burt is rockin’ the Captain Kangaroo sideburns.
@davidbaldwin1591 Жыл бұрын
Fun time listening to him talk! People get more silly the older they get.
@kensherwin4544 Жыл бұрын
I think that's largely due to the reduction of his GAS factor he mentioned. I've found mine is going down too.
@konradcomrade48459 ай бұрын
The fault of John Denver's fuel-switching deadly mishap on a modified Long-EZ goes deeper than the FAA may have uncovered: the valve was probably made of "modern" yellow brass, which is a different alloy composition than traditional. The problem was not just the FAA-mentioned little negligence of having no indicaters next to the switch-handle! Old brass valves never had problems, they worked even after several decades. Modern yellow brass is containing more tin_Zn and less Cu than the previous alloy composition standard ( changed by bean-counters/authorities? or inferior foreign standards, Japanese, EU, or Chinese?). New_alloy brass valves, that are not operated regularly tend to stick and freeze in place!! (I have one stuck at home in my basement, albeit it is a water valve made of "modern brass" crapp!) There is too much Zn on the sealing surfaces so it oxidizes and the valve gets stuck. The first time it happens, the mechanics takes pliers and breaks it loose, so that the valve works again "almost normally". But the smooth sealing surface is "wounded" and new Zn atoms are exposed to the shearing surface and start solwly oxidizing encore. Supposedly this happened to John Denver: he had no pliers in the cockpit. To switch the bad fuel-valve he had to use all his force of his right hand fingers, then he tapped the foot pedal... Since he broke loose the valve with full force, it worked well again and the inspectors found nothing suspicious to criticize, except the missing tank indicators. Another scenario, which I strongly suspect is that the fuel-valve was frozen BEFORE the accident!!!
@voornaam31916 ай бұрын
And that is the reason why you should never just tinker with planes. Another example is an airliner pilot who heard plock and had no windscreen anymore. The bolts are special alloy, and an unexperienced maintenance guy repleced them, with ordinary bolts we'd buy in the hardware shop. This gets me flabbergasted, in aviation you NEVER replace things unasked. Even a simple switch may look like a simple switch, but maybe this one was tested for 6G. No, forces, not the microwave frequency phones. I've flown gliders decades ago, and the certified technicians were one by one extremely careful. Think about it, doing any repair, if any detail is wrong, somebody can die, maybe years later. Your brass valve story makes sense, but who on earth would buy the wrong type of fuel selector? You buy one with the famous brand name. You search online for a secondhand one, from a scrapped vintage plane, you test it thoroughly on firm ground. Besides, when a valve got stuck, then who skipped the inspections? Nice to banter on and on, but why don't you all kick those Fawlty Vavles out of the cockpit? Get that done, set up a We-Want-More-Copper movement, tell the aviation world to do somethin, please. When you are right, and be honest why NOT, the FAA might support you, and take this to a national level. Because this is about safety.
@voornaam31916 ай бұрын
Ehm, armchair dude here. You got a point. If valves get stuck, that hurts in flight. Point taken. But... don't you think John Denver could have reached for that valve, and simply not found the darn thing in time? Or fying low altitude, pushed a pedal or jerked the stick? You need to be a contortionist. It was i that impossible spot for safety, the previous owner did not want any fuel tubing in the cockpit. Engine in the back, that makes sense, but you must absolutely get used to the fuel selector position, and Denver flew his first flight. Why don't they produce fuel selectors that have some way to remote control them, without turning it into a gas cigarette lighter? A bowden cable would do great. Just keep them lubed. Then you keep gas from your cockpit and you can select the wrong tank, for that is what we always see on KZbin. Cynical, sorry. Select the good tank.
@bernardc255311 ай бұрын
What a Great Mind I was luckily enough to meet Dick Gina & Ferg. Ferg fey was heavy into the watercooled pwr Plt. On the Voyager amazing Men & Women ❤
@appaho9tel Жыл бұрын
What did Burt do with his pyramid house?
@appaho9tel Жыл бұрын
WOW!
@NeroontheGoon Жыл бұрын
If I had the money, I’ve always wanted a PT-6 powered Pond racer scaled up about 10%. Modify it to seat two in tandem and go like stink! My uncle and I built a Vari-Eze and a Long-Eze. My favorite was the Vari-Eze with the dogtooth wings. About the fastest 100 horsepower flying!
@bernardc2553 Жыл бұрын
OH my lord!! Id take him to Vegas tho..
@clintonsmith9931 Жыл бұрын
Isn’t it strange that it takes the strangest people to make great inroads into the future. Even tho it seemed such small steps at the time. Remember well a man, a DR Windecker building 3 small planes using fiberglass products. Think they were not the greatest successes but it was the first I was aware of . Small steps.
@kindradeleon905311 ай бұрын
You couldn’t pay me to get on that thing!
@donaldshannon1496 Жыл бұрын
But I knew you in Iancsrer and shared a building with you in Mojave when you designed the veryezy.
@mrjoel59 Жыл бұрын
One name , Patey
@voornaam31916 ай бұрын
Nice, just one question. Who have been General Aviation since WW2? Is there a list online? Is it the Airforce appointing the next General Aviation? Or is it the FAA? Is he the military pilot in charge with getting good relations between restricted airspace and other airspace pilots? That is a hell of a job, no wonder they call him General Aviation. But, I find no info on him. Is it a CIA general, maybe? General Aviation, kind of James Bond? Help! Just kidding, but people working on planes are NEVER average or general. They are highly specialised. There are no general rules, except things like "Now it goes up, you bet it will come down. It is not space flight."
@MrLuumpy4 ай бұрын
Space? Thats funny. If it is not in orbit, it's not a spacecraft. Not even close.
@Yosemite-George-6110 ай бұрын
he never went to space... he never built anything with a real heatshield... No heatshield, no space, no Buck Rogers... and he failed miserably there where big men played once, Reno Unlimited Racing...
@chuckschillingvideos Жыл бұрын
More like a powered glider designer. Rutan has designed more useless aircraft than anyone I can think of.