THE RETURN OF THE VOYAGER : A Native Californian, Rutan Was Born to Fly

L.A. Times Archives

Dec. 24, 1986 12 AM PT

Dick Rutan, co-pilot of the Voyager, is at home in the air.

A retired Air Force jet pilot, Rutan, 48, flew 325 combat missions in Vietnam. Later he joined his brother Burt’s small firm that manufactures lightweight aircraft in Mojave, where the Voyager was designed and built.

Born in Loma Linda, the son of a dentist, Dick Rutan grew up in the San Joaquin Valley town of Dinuba. He was fascinated by airplanes.

“Whenever I saw an airplane as a kid, I wanted to get up there in it,” Rutan said. “Those contrails of the big jets overwhelmed me. It was my destiny to fly.”

He started flying lessons at 15 and soloed on his 16th birthday. By the time he had graduated from high school, Rutan had a commercial pilot’s license, flight instructor’s rating and a mechanic’s permit.

Volunteered for Combat

Rutan studied aeronautical engineering for a time, then went off to the Air Force where he volunteered to fly F-100s in 105 sorties over North Vietnam.

Rutan was gung-ho--”Killer” was his Air Force nickname--but he lost some of his enthusiasm one day in 1968 when, while on a strafing run, his fighter-bomber was hit by ground fire. Rutan bailed out of the burning aircraft over the South China Sea and was picked up by a rescue helicopter, and he started to think about what he had been doing.

“Suddenly, I realized what a terrible thing it all was,” Rutan said in an interview in New Yorker magazine earlier this year. “I guess I had been brainwashed. . . . The stupidity of that war! . . . Criminal is what it was.”

For all his doubts, Rutan stayed in the Air Force and gladly accepted a long series of medals, including the Silver Star, 5 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 16 Air Medals and the Purple Heart. But he stopped volunteering for combat.

He served another decade in the Air Force, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring in 1978.

Rutan and his high school sweetheart, Geraldine Tompkins, became the parents of two daughters in the 1960s, but their marriage failed after his military career ended.

In Mojave, Rutan worked as a test pilot for his brother’s Rutan Aircraft Factory. It was Burt Rutan who came up with the idea of building a plane that could fly around the world without refueling. Burt Rutan also designed it.

Dick Rutan founded Voyager Aircraft Inc. in 1981 to pursue the dream.

He and Jeana Yeager are the sole owners of the company, and they went deep in debt--borrowing more than $300,000--despite cash flowing in from private contributions, a gift shop selling Voyager trinkets and speaking engagements.

A few months ago, after Rutan earned a quick $25 for checking out a local Mojave pilot seeking to renew his license, he went out and bought himself a new pair of sneakers--”which I needed badly. That’s how Jeana and I live,” he explained. “But we’re going to pull this thing off, by hook or by crook.”

Rutan holds 10 speed and endurance records, several of them set in the Voyager.

He has 7,200 hours of flying time--excluding the round-the-world flight--about 2,000 of them in high-performance Air Force jets.

The 6-foot-2 Rutan is a blue-eyed, dark-haired man. He is described by friends as stubborn, determined, forceful and outgoing. He is capable of typical test pilot “Right Stuff” irreverence, but he also takes his work seriously.

“It’s a big responsibility--the last plum in aviation,” Rutan said of the record-breaking attempt. “Every professional should try to do something significant in his field.”

For Rutan, the flight was “the last major event still to be achieved in atmospheric aviation. It’s like breaking the sound barrier.

“If you’re an individual with an opportunity to accomplish a major milestone in your chosen field . . . it grips you. You can’t walk away from it.”