European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 17, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Malcolm Browne new York times nearly a Quarter of a Century a b52h Jet bomber flew Miles from Okinawa to Spain to establish the distance record for in refuelled that record has never been and All attempts since 1962 have been thwarted by the performance limitations inherent in conventional aircraft but two private Richard Rutan and Jean have built a remarkable air plane based on new materials and design principles in which they intend to set the ultimate distance their plan is to Fly around the world Miles without Landing or the featherlight air plane on which their Hopes and safety will ride is made largely of stiffened and yet it is As Large As an the Craft weighs less than an and yet it can carry As much fuel As a gasoline tank Rutan and Yeager Hope to make their epochal flight Early next provided they can raise the Money to Complete the assuming that they survive the 12day their is assured a place in the smithsonian institutions air and space along with Charles Lindbergh spirit of Louis and other trailblazing no Cash prize or trophy awaits them for setting a new distance and their Only Reward will be personal the which has Cost nearly million Over the past five has nearly exhausted their raised mainly from hundreds of Small the company founded by Rutan and voyager aircraft is never Likely to make a profit its purpose will end once voyager has completed its Rounth world a few fellow pilots have called Rutan and Yeager quixotic throwbacks to the time Between the two world when such fliers As Lindbergh and his Howard Wiley and Amelia Earhart could thrill the world with their in those the daring aviator could win immense acclaim and rewards for risking tragic often but times have changed neither ticker tape parades nor fat prize purses go to Recor Breakers and Are pushing preparations in their hangar workshop at Mojave about 60 Miles North of los weve put our lives and careers on the Yeager told a and we mean to finish what weve with the help of Bruce Evans and a handful of other expert craftsmen some but All donating most of their and labor Rutan and Yeager Are putting the finishing touches on the gleaming White nearly the entire air plane and fuselage will be filled with the Gallons of 100 octane gasoline needed to Fly Miles and provide an additional fuel at voyagers gasoline will weigh nearly five times As much As the air plane and to get into the air the machine will need a very Long its pilots therefore plan to use nearby Edwards rather than Mojave for the Start of their the Takeoff is Likely to be hair raising voyagers thin wings Are so flexible that the weight of the gasoline inside them will Bend them downward about five so that the tips will almost touch the the tentative course Rutan and Yeager have charted leads Westward Over the and the Indian around the Southern tip of then across the South the and the United the route will take advantage of Westerly Trade winds wherever and will avoid All except for Australia and possibly South our main concern is to avoid falling hostage to some third world Rutan later this month the voyager team plans to install the two special engines built for the record the cruising a new Type unveiled by Tel Edyne Continental motors in june at the Paris air was designed to run for hours without requiring hours longer than most aircraft Piston the maker says that the t to horsepower engine is very Light about 200 exceptionally sparing of fuel above it will have to although the voyager has two around the world in 12 Days nonstop Jeana and partner Richard Rutan plan featherlight new York times one in the nose to assist at Takeoff and the special cruise motor at the rear of the the Forward engine will be running Only during Takeoff and for the first few thousand after it will be shut Down to conserve and the voyager will Putter along at about 80 Mph for the rest of the special reversible pitch propellers for voyagers designed and built in West will help it slow Down when it the planes huge wings have neither flaps nor and the machine is so Page 14 the stars and stripes Light that it tends to float into the air at very Low should its cruise engine the plane would have to land or to save electric starters were and once the Takeoff engine is shut Down it must remain dead weight for the duration of the the voyager looks far too big for the two Small engines that propel its knife like with a Span of Are nearly three feet longer than those of a Boeing 727 besides the main which Are joined to the rear of the tubular the plane has a Shorter set of canard or horizontal near its the tips of the canards Are attached to the noses of two Long outrigger booms that extend Tail Ward past the main wings and culminate in a pair of from the the voyager looks like a Canada Goose carrying a Gigantic croquet wicket on its outlandish though the voyagers layout May the plane was designed by one of the worlds most innovative aircraft Rutan younger Burt Burt Rutan has won global acclaim from aircraft manufacturers for his trailblazing particularly his distinctive canard Wing that look As if they were flying the main wings of a canard air plane Are attached to the aft part of the and smaller wings near the nose provide pitch the design is not Only aerodynamically but it eliminates unintentional designs by Burt Rutan shaped Beech aircraft revolutionary new Sta ship i executive the first commercial canard plane to go into Richard Rutan recalled a conversation that led to the voyager my brother Burt and i were sitting in a Mojave Coffee shop Back in he when we got to wondering whether it would be possible to build a plane that would Fly around the world without he started sketching on a and it want Long before we realized that it could be done and that we were going to do Richard Rutan qualifications As a Pilot Are As impressive As Are his Brothers credentials As a a former fighter Pilot who was awarded a Silver Star and five distinguished flying crosses for his 325 combat missions in is a seasoned test he holds six world records for Speed and distance in various Light aircraft his Pilot is a drafting Engineer who established five world records piloting Light aircraft on her she is not related to Chuck the air Force test Pilot who was first to break the sound besides the voyagers bizarre shape and propulsion the most Radical departure from convention is its apart from and there is no Metal in the plane at All it is built entirely of Graphite resin impregnated and other space age y composite starting with Wood or plastic lockups of the j planes Evans and other members of the voyager team made casts of each Section of the booms and the casts were lined with Graphite fiber tape impregnated with epoxy after fixing several layers of tape in the builders added an appropriate thickness of a thick honeycomb of resin impregnated paper called another layer of Graphite fiber tape was Laid Over the Nome to Complete the once such a part is oven it is far stronger and lighter than an equivalent part made of Metal would a Boom or fuselage assembled from these components requires Little or no internal supporting since it is impervious to it can be used As an integral fuel obviating the need for conventional gasoline there is so Little substance to voyager that when the plane flies it and flaps its wings giving occupants a singularly uncomfortable and exhausting in Rutan and Yeager change places from time to the duty Pilot seated in a cramped cockpit in the right of the the of duty Pilot lying prone in a tube like bunk to the because of the planes neither occupant can see much outside the crafts tiny windows and cockpit the Ruta Yeager project is not the Only one competing for the Rounth world a half dozen other air plane including Paul builder of the first successful Man powered and Jerry Holder of the close circuit distance record for Piston powered have entered the race in the past several some have already built aircraft and Thomas of was killed in 1982 while testing his East coast magnetic anomaly West african coast magnetic anomaly Northam Rica Africa magnetic anomaly new York times when continents collide by Walter Sullivan new York times using artificial Earth Cornell University scientists have found what they believe is the geologic connection where Florida and Southern Georgia joined North America 250 million years in the final stages of Africa collision with North according to the widely accepted theory of plate a part of Africa now forming Florida and Southern Georgia was squeezed against North 50 million years the continents broke apart and the modern Atlantic Ocean began those regions remained As part of North this sequence of events had been indicated in recent years by Rock samples More than 350 million years old that were extracted from deep holes drilled through sediments of the Suwannee Basin of Northern Florida and Southern the samples contained fossils of rather than magnetism imprinted in the Rock also showed that it then Lay in the same magnetic latitude As the new appears to have identified the zone where the two land masses became welded according to the Cornell it is the first time such a deeply buried suture has been located the evidence was obtained from lines of seismic soundings that ran from North to a Complex of deep lying seismic reflectors recorded in the zone Between and de 40 Miles to the is believed to Mark the or zone of Butler is close to the fall line where the loftier Piedmont drops to the coastal Many East coast cities evolved along the fall including and Augusta and because that was where water Power was available or because the line was the upstream limit of Ocean the Cornell scientists that instead of following the fall the suture follows an East West zone of weak terrestrial known As the Brunswick magnetic which runs out into the Atlantic Ocean across the Continental shelf East of the suture is then thought to turn North along a zone of weak magnetism that parallels the outer Edge of the Continental a similar magnetic zone has been mapped along the african coast from Dakar if Africa could be moved Back to the position it is believed to have occupied when welded to North before birth of the these two magnetic zones would it is not Only was the suture Between the two but Marks where they split an is that portion of the suture where Florida and Southern Georgia remained joined to North profiled of the deep structures under Florida and Georgia was carried out by Douglas Nelson and his colleagues at Cornell As a project of the consortium for Continental reflection it has been financed largely by the National science the project uses a originally developed for Oil in which Vibrator trucks shake the ground at various by recording the reflections of these vibrations from underground formations can be identified at Depths As great As 30 profiles obtained in this manner have already revealed deeply buried and hitherto unsuspected features of the among the discoveries has been that extensive sections of the landscape were thrust across what were once features near the according to Jack director of the project at the suture zone appears to be triangular in Cross with a relatively narrow top at a depth of three Miles and a Broad base where it reaches the base of the or 20 Miles below the below the Moho a nickname for Mohorovicic discontinuity the Rock becomes substantially denser and therefore transmits earthquake Waves at higher a striking Oliver is failure of the suture structures to penetrate below the this had been seen in other but never so it is assumed that the Continental blocks that merged extended far deeper into the the fact that evidence of the suture does not extend below that level implies the Moho somehow reconfigured a puzzling at a depth of nine was a seismic Bright spot of the Type often associated with Oil and Gas Oliver is Uncertain whether it represents Fossil molten Rock or some other August 1985 the stars and stripes Page 15