Dick Rutan (–2024)

Jeana Lee Yeager is an American aviator. She co-piloted, along with Dick Rutan (brother of Burt), the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager aircraft from December 14 to 23, 1986. The flight took 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds and covered 24,986 miles, more than doubling the old distance record set by a Boeing B-52 bomber in 1962.
The two fliers who made it happen tell their own stories of the designing and building of the Voyager, and the first circumnavigation of the world without refueling. The Voyager 's nine-day epic flight around the world without refueling was a media event and the culmination of a dream. The demanding physical requirements of the flight and the setbacks in its preparation represent a pinnacle of endurance by Yeager and Rutan, who spent six years designing, building, and testing the aircraft. Voyager 's uniqueness was in its airfoil design, immense fuel capacity, and very light composite structure. The human interest in this achievement will appeal to those who followed the story in the news. Well-written and highly recommended. BOMC alternate.William A. McIntyre,… (altro)