Burt Rutan: Reinventing the Airplane

The Wright brothers invented the airplane, Burt Rutan perfected it. This is the story of a genius who specialized in movement. He took planes, boats and rockets and made them move smoother, faster, longer, safer and more efficiently. Just before Christmas in 1986, Rutan's Voyager aircraft completed the first nonstop flight, around the world, without refueling. Voyager was constructed almost entirely of lightweight graphite-honeycomb composite materials and designed by Rutan to minimize fuel consuming drag.