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ANNCR:

EXPLORATIONS -- a program in Special English by the Voice ofAmerica.

It was called the last great goalin flying. It would be a flight around the world without stopping oradding more fuel. Today, Frank Oliver and Doug Johnson tell about aspecial plane called Voyager and the effort to set a difficult worldrecord.

VOICE ONE:

Voyager began as a quick drawing on a small piece of paper. Sixyears later, the drawing was a plane that made history.

Many people gave their time, energy and money to help make theflight happen. But three people had lead parts in the event. DickRutan. Burt Rutan. And Jeana Yeager.

Dick Rutan was an experiencedflier. He had been a pilot in the United States military during thewar in Vietnam. After the war, he worked as a test pilot. He flewplanes designed by his younger brother Burt.

Burt Rutan was well-known as a designer of experimental planes.And Jeana Yeager held nine world flight records as a pilot.

VOICE TWO:

One day in early Nineteen-Eighty-One, Dick, Burt and Jeana wereeating in a restaurant in Mojave, California. Burt turned to hisbrother and asked a wild question. "How would you like to be thefirst person to fly around the world without stopping to re-fuel?"

The three considered the idea. A non-stop flight around the worldwithout re-fueling was the last flight record to be set. The flightalways had been considered impossible. No plane could carry enoughfuel to fly that far: forty-thousand kilometers.

But now there were new materials for planes. Burt thought hecould build a plane that could make the voyage. Dick and Jeanathought they could fly it. No one could think of a good reason notto try.

Burt picked up a small piece of paper. He drew an airplane thatlooked like a giant wing, and not much more. That was the beginning.

VOICE ONE:

Not since the days of Orville and Wilbur Wright had the peoplemaking a record flight designed and built their own aircraft. Dick,Burt and Jeana did. Some people thought their Voyager project wasboth impossible and foolish. Everyone knew it would be dangerous.

The Voyager crew worked on the plane in a small building at anairport in California's Mojave Desert. Dick, Burt and Jeana receivedno government money. Instead, they got small amounts of money fromlots of different people.

As news of the project spread, more and more people offered tohelp. There were aviation engineers and workers from the spaceagency's experimental plane project. Several airplane companiesoffered equipment to be used in the plane. When Voyager wasfinished, it had two-million dollars' worth of parts in it.

VOICE TWO:

Burt Rutan had built light-weight planes before. He knew a normalplane made of aluminum metal could not make a trip around the worldwithout adding fuel. So his solution was to build Voyager almostcompletely out of new materials. The materials were very light, butvery strong. This meant Voyager could lift and carry many times itsweight in fuel.

The finished plane weighed just nine-hundred kilograms, about theweight of a small car. The full load of fuel weighed three timesthat much, about three-thousand kilograms. Voyager was not built tobe a fast plane. It flew about one-hundred seventy-five kilometersan hour.

VOICE ONE:

The main wing of the finishedplane was more than thirty-three meters across. That is wider thanthe main wing on today's big passenger planes. The center part ofthe plane held the crew. And on either side of this body were twolong fuel tanks.

In fact, almost all of the Voyager was a fuel tank. Seventeenseparate containers were squeezed into every possible space. Duringthe flight, the pilots had to move fuel from container to containerto keep the plane balanced. One engine at each end of the body ofthe plane provided power.

The area for the two pilots was unbelievably small. It was justone meter wide by two-and-one-quarter meters long. The person flyingthe plane sat in the pilot's seat. The other person had to lie downat all times.

VOICE TWO:

After many test flights, the Voyager was finally ready inDecember, Nineteen-Eighty-Six. The best weather for flying aroundthe world is from June to August. That time was far past. But thepilots were tired of delays. They made the decision to take-off,knowing the weather might be bad.

On December Fourteenth, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager walked aroundthe plane one more time. It looked like a giant white flying insect.They were going to be trusting their lives to this strange plane forthe next nine days.

Dick climbed into the only seat. Jeana lay on the floor. Theywere ready to go. Flight controllers at Edwards Air Force Base inCalifornia cleared them for a trip no one had ever attempted before.

VOICE ONE:

The long, thin wings of the plane were so loaded with fuel thatthey almost touched the ground. Voyager began to move down therunway, slowly. But something was wrong. The ends of the wings werenot lifting.

Burt Rutan sent a radio message to his brother to lift theplane's nose. "Pull back on the stick!" he screamed. "Pull back!"But Dick did not hear the warning. And he did not see the wings. Hewas looking straight ahead.

Voyager was getting dangerously close to the end of the runway.It appeared about to crash. Finally, just in time, the long wingsswept up. The plane leaped into the air.

Planes following Voyager could see that the ends of the wingswere badly damaged. Dick turned the plane so the force of aircurrents would break off the broken ends. Then he aimed Voyager outover the Pacific Ocean.

VOICE TWO:

Weight was the main consideration in designing the experimentalplane. Not safety. Not comfort. Voyager did not have most of thenormal safety equipment of modern planes. There were no specialmaterials to block the noise of the engines. And space for thepilots was so tight they had great difficulty changing places.

Voyager's long wings moved up and down as the winds changed. Itseemed to sail on waves of air, just like a sailboat on ocean waves.This motion meant the flight was extremely rough.

VOICE ONE:

It was not an enjoyable trip. Dick and Jeana were always tense.At the end of the second day, the weather expert for the flightwarned of trouble. Voyager was heading for an ocean storm. Dick wasable to fly close to the storm and ride its winds.

On the third day, Voyager was in trouble again. It had to flybetween huge thunderhead clouds on one side and Vietnam's airspaceon the other. Dick was able to keep the plane safely in the middle.

Over Africa, the two pilots struggled with continuous stormyweather. Dick had flown almost all of the first sixty hours of theflight. Then he changed places with Jeana for short periods. Bothwere extremely tired.

Suddenly, a red warning light turned on. It was a signal thatthere was not enough oil in one engine. Dick and Jeana had been sobusy trying to fly around bad weather and mountains that they hadforgotten to watch the oil level. But luck stayed with them. Theyadded the necessary oil. The engine was not damaged.

VOICE TWO:

Once past the violent weather over Africa, Dick and Jeana beganplanning the way home. A computer confirmed that they had enoughfuel left to make it. But as they flew up the coast of Mexico, theengine on the back of the plane failed. Fuel had stopped flowing toit.

The more powerful front engine already had been shut down earlierto save fuel. With neither engine working, Voyager quickly began tolose speed and height. The plane fell for five minutes. Dick finallygot the front engine started again. Then fuel started flowing to theback engine, and it began to work again, too.

VOICE ONE:

Nine days after take-off, Voyager landed smoothly at Edwards AirForce Base in California. It had completed aforty-thousand-kilometer flight around the world. It had notstopped. And it had not re-fueled.

Dick said after landing: "This was the last major event ofatmospheric flight." Jeana added: "It was a lot more difficult thanwe ever imagined."

Burt Rutan's revolutionary plane design had worked. And, with it,Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager had joined the list of the world'sgreatest fliers.

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ANNOUNCER:

This Special English program was written by Marilyn RiceChristiano. Your narrators were Frank Oliver and Doug Johnson. I'mShirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another EXPLORATIONSprogram on the Voice of America.