Voyager, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, and the Nine Days They Flew Around the World Without Landing or Taking On a Single Drop of Fuel

In December 1986, the experimental aircraft Voyager became the first airplane to fly nonstop around the world without refueling, completing a roughly 25,000-mile lap of the planet in 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds. Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager and designed by Burt Rutan, the aircraft launched from Edwards Air Force Base in California, circled the globe near the equator, and returned to the same lakebed with only a few gallons of usable fuel remaining. It remains one of the defining achievements in the history of powered flight.

What was Voyager and why was it built?

For most of the twentieth century, flying nonstop around the world without refueling was considered nearly impossible. The problem is easy to state and brutal to solve: to fly that far without stopping, an aircraft has to carry all of its fuel with it. But fuel is heavy, and the more you carry, the heavier the airplane becomes - which means it burns more fuel just to carry the fuel. Every pound of gas demands more structure to hold it, and more structure demands still more gas.

According to the accounts, the concept was first sketched out on a napkin over lunch. Burt Rutan, an aircraft designer, was talking with his brother Dick Rutan, a combat pilot who flew hundreds of missions in Vietnam, and pilot Jeana Yeager (no relation to Chuck Yeager). The question they raised was simple: could you build an airplane light enough and efficient enough to fly all the way around the globe on a single load of fuel?

How was Voyager designed?

The airplane Burt Rutan designed looked like nothing that had come before it - and most of it was fuel. At takeoff, roughly 72 percent of Voyager’s total weight was gasoline. The empty airframe weighed about 2,200 pounds, but loaded for the trip it weighed nearly 10,000 pounds. In effect, the machine was a flying fuel tank with two people bolted into the middle of it.

Voyager was built almost entirely from new materials - graphite, composite, and honeycomb - with almost no metal where you would normally expect it. The structure was so light that sections could be lifted by a couple of people. It featured a long, slender center pod for the crew, two booms running out to a forward wing (a canard) up front, and a large main wing behind. Seventeen fuel tanks were distributed throughout the structure.

The aircraft carried two engines: one in the nose that pulled, and one in the tail that pushed. The front engine provided the muscle for takeoff and climb. Once the aircraft was airborne and had burned off enough weight, the crew shut it down and crossed oceans on the smaller rear engine alone, sipping fuel to extend their range.

What were the living conditions like on board?

The crew cabin was about the size of a phone booth laid on its side - roughly 7 feet long and 2 feet wide. One person could lie down while the other flew. There was no standing, stretching, or walking, for the entire nine days.

The noise never stopped. Both crew members wore headsets and it was still deafening, with every surface buzzing. They ate cold food and slept in shifts measured in a couple of hours at most. By the end of the flight, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager had endured about as much as two people can share in such a confined space.

What happened during Voyager’s takeoff?

The takeoff nearly ended the flight before it began. Voyager rolled out onto the runway at Edwards Air Force Base, on the dry lakebed in the California desert, before sunrise. The aircraft was so heavy that it needed the full 14,000 feet of runway - more than two and a half miles of concrete - to get airborne.

As it accelerated, the long wings, drooping under the weight of all that fuel, dragged their tips along the runway. The winglets on the ends were scraped and damaged. Dick Rutan finally lifted the airplane into the air as the runway ran out, with one damaged winglet barely hanging on. The crew’s first act after getting airborne was to let the airflow tear the broken tips off completely - shedding parts of the airplane over the desert within the first hour of a nine-day journey.

What route did Voyager fly, and what dangers did it face?

Voyager headed west out over the Pacific, following a route around the middle of the earth near the equator, where the distance around the globe is greatest. The total distance covered was about 25,000 miles - a genuine full lap of the planet.

Over the Pacific, the crew encountered a large typhoon named Marge. Rather than simply avoiding it, Burt Rutan at mission control and the team’s meteorologist used it: they flew Voyager along the edge of the storm system so the winds on its back side would give the aircraft a push - turning a hazard into free speed.

The airplane itself was a handful to fly. Its long, flexible wings flapped and bent in turbulence, making it feel like a wet noodle. Over Africa, the crew picked their way through thunderstorms in the dark, dodging cells while the airframe wallowed and flexed. Dick Rutan later described parts of the trip as some of the most demanding flying of his life - a striking statement from a combat veteran.

There were mechanical problems throughout: oil warnings, a troublesome pump, and lost systems that the crew nursed along. Because fuel was spread across seventeen tanks, they had to constantly pump it from tank to tank by hand to keep the aircraft balanced and stable.

What was the near-disaster at the end of the flight?

The most dangerous moment came near the very end. As Voyager approached home on its final leg, the rear engine quit due to fuel starvation - one of the tanks had run dry. Low on fuel and light, the aircraft began sinking toward the ocean, descending thousands of feet.

The solution was the front engine, which had been shut down and sitting cold for days. A cold engine that has been off that long does not always restart, but this one caught. It pulled Voyager out of the descent, the crew got the rear engine fed and running again, and they climbed back up to continue. After nearly 25,000 miles, the flight almost ended in its final hundreds of miles - within sight of home.

How did the flight end?

On December 23, 1986, Voyager returned over Edwards Air Force Base, 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds after departing on December 14. The crew flew a low pass over the crowd that had gathered in the desert, then Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager landed on the same lakebed they had left from.

The most telling number came after landing: Voyager had only a few gallons of usable fuel remaining out of the more than 7,000 pounds it had carried. The aircraft was designed down to the last drop, and it was flown down to the last drop. No one had ever flown around the world nonstop without refueling - and Voyager had just done it.

Why does the Voyager flight still matter?

The flight is easy to dismiss as a stunt, but it was far more than that. It required a designer willing to abandon the assumption that airplanes must be built from aluminum in familiar shapes. It proved out composite materials that much of the aviation world was still nervous about, testing them under the hardest possible conditions. And it depended on a crew willing to fold themselves into a tiny cabin and hand-fly a fragile machine through typhoons and thunderstorms for nine days straight - supported by a ground team and volunteers who built the aircraft in a desert hangar on a shoestring budget.

Voyager is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., in the main hall near the Spirit of St. Louis and the Bell X-1 - fitting company among the aircraft that flew the flights no one had flown before.

Key Takeaways

Voyager was the first aircraft to fly nonstop around the world without refueling, covering roughly 25,000 miles in 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds in December 1986.
The aircraft was flown by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager and designed by Burt Rutan, built largely from composite materials with two engines and seventeen fuel tanks.
At takeoff, about 72 percent of Voyager’s weight was fuel; it weighed nearly 10,000 pounds loaded versus about 2,200 pounds empty.
The flight nearly failed twice - during a dangerous takeoff that damaged the wingtips, and near the end when the rear engine quit from fuel starvation over the ocean.
Voyager landed with only a few gallons of fuel to spare and is now displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.