AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2013 - 39

VIEW THE

VIDEO

A video of Rutan can
be seen on YouTube
(www.youtube.com/
watch?v=2OZQ9Nd76g).

Burt Rutan developing
new seaplane
No medical required
B Y A LTO N K . M A R S H

While learning in the family’s Cub, his dad kept reciting the
old “step-on-the-ball” mantra, but Sammy—then 12—thought his
dad was referring to a real ball, and not the tiny one suspended
in the inclinometer.
“I kept looking all over the floor of the airplane for a ball,”
he said. “I didn’t know he was talking about something on the
instrument panel. But at some point, I got it, and things just
clicked.”
After our photo flight, Mason made a series of takeoffs and
landings at Santa Paula’s Runway 22. On some, he’d touch down
on the left main wheel and track the centerline, and then lift off
again and alternate with the right wheel.
Showing off?
“No, just practicing a coordination exercise my dad taught
me,” he said. “I hadn’t flown the Stearman for a few months, so
it’s a way to develop a feel for the airplane.”
EMAIL dave.hirschman@aopa.org

TWO YEARS AFTER RETIREMENT Burt Rutan is at it
again, developing a new seaplane called the Skigull at
his cabin near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It rises from the
water on skis. At first he thought he had an original
design, a tandem-seat twin-engine amphibian that can
land on snow, grass, and—if you must—a paved airport.
Then he found the 1950s Sea Dart jet on the Internet
taking off on water skis.
It’s also a piston-engine motor glider. It has to be if
Rutan, who lost his medical in 1998, is going to fly it. An
FAA friend told him that he needed longer wings if he
wanted it to qualify as a motor glider. So Rutan created
a 43-foot wingspan that can be folded for docking while
still on the water, or for storage in a garage. The design
may be sold as a kit, if it works,” Rutan told a meeting of
The Old Bold Pilots in California.
If it works, Rutan will have himself a two-seat
amphib capable of making it from the cabin to Oshkosh
with one stop. He won’t need a medical. He has not chosen the engines because he does not yet know the power
that will be needed. The two engines will blow across
a high-lift section of the wing. With all that wingspan
comes the tendency to float, so he will have big flaps to
give him short takeoff and landing capability for small
lakes—the kind he likes to explore.
When you must positively, absolutely land at a
boring paved airport, roller-blade wheels will extend
three-tenths of an inch below the skis. The skis are
coated with the same kind of plastic used on recreational skis and Iditarod race sleds in Alaska.
The taildragger is a trimaran, with 40 percent of its
weight supported in the water by the sponsons and 60
percent supported by the hull. His waist will be below
the waterline. There are still questions to be answered,
so a wooden model of the Skigull has been completed
and will be attached to a modified boat that will push it
through the water to measure the power required. This
will be Rutan’s thirty-seventh aircraft design (see “An
Unlikely Astronaut,” page 64).
—AKM

www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 39

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2013