Non-stop world attempt by a ‘flying fuel tank’

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 12

Non-stop world attempt by a ‘flying fuel tank’

NZPA-Reuter Washington A Californian aircraft maker piloting a huge outrigger-shaped aircraft plans to make the first attempt to fly non-stop around the world next year without aerial refuelling. Mr Dick Rutan, aged 45, whose factory built the twin-engine Voyager aircraft, said it would take 12 days to circle the full circumference of the Earth, a distance of 40,000 km. The present record distance for a non-refuelled flight was set in 1962 by a United States Air Force B-52 flying from Okinawa,

south of Japan, to Madrid. “A flight like this only became possible recently with the invention of lightweight materials to replace aluminium in the construction of the aircraft fuselage," Mr Rutan said. The propeller-driven aircraft has a central fuselage and two outrigger fuel booms intersected by a wing 34m long. It is virtually a flying fuel tank with 17 tanks capable of containing more than four tonnes of fuel, theoretically enough to carry it 41,600 km. “They will all be con-

nected to the fuselage by feed lines which will take small amounts out of each tank to maintain balance," he said. Mr Rutan will share the piloting with Jeane Yeager, aged 32, and they will also have an automatic pilot aboard. He said the plane was finished and would begin test flights’at Mojave, California, next week. During the next year, the Voyager would attempt to beat every long-distance record for various types of aircraft before trying the world flight.