Tired Voyager pilots head home

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 6

Tired Voyager pilots head home

NZPA-Reuter Mojave, California Bruised and battered by turbulence and near exhaustion, the Voyager pilots guided their experimental aircraft towards an historic landing in the California desert early this morning. Dick Rutan and his copilot, Jeana Yeager, were described as extremely fatigued but exuberant about becoming the first aviators to circle the Earth without refuelling. Mr Rutan, a retired Air Force pilot who has been at the controls of the spindly little plane for 85 per cent of their

nearly nine days aloft, was expected to miss a night’s sleep as Voyager forged through the strong headwinds that were slowing progress up the Pacific coast of Mexico. “They’re really in super spirits,” Mr Rutan’s brother, Burt, the plane’s designer, told reporters at Voyager headquarters at Mojave Airport. “I suspect he won’t sleep again until after he gets on the ground.” Voyager, which took off on December 14 with five tonnes of fuel in 17 separate tanks, had sufficient fuel to fly about 6400 km farther than the

necessary 44,000 km to circumnavigate the earth. “There is enough fuel that if he took off again without refuelling he could fly to New York and go another 1600 km,” said Mr Rutan. Although buffeted by a tropical storm in the Pacific and violent turbulence over Africa and off the coast of -Brazil, Voyager was pushed ahead of schedule by tail winds nearly all the way around the world until turning north towards home after crossing Costa Rica. Ms Yeager, a aged 34, an engineer and race

pilot, suffered bumps and bruises while being tossed about her resting space in the tiny cockpit as the ultra-light aircraft bounced through unexpected turbulence. Mr Rutan, aged 49, had no complaints but is also thought to have been knocked around while he tried to sleep. Thousands of spectators were expected to gather at Edwards Air Force Base, in the Mojave Desert about 145 km north of Los Angeles, in the pre-dawn cold to be on hand for the landing. After the odd-looking plane touches down on a I.skm-wide circle

marked with the points of the compass and outlined in oil on the hardpacked surface, .the pilots will be taken by ambulance to the Air Force hospital at Edwards for a physical examination and possible treatment The plane will be inspected by officials of the National Aeronautic Association, the organisation that will certify the record-setting flight Mr Rutan and Ms Yeager will have more than doubled the previous world distance record of 20,168 km set in 1962 by an eight-jet B-52 bomber.