On December 14, 1986, a bizarre-looking aircraft so laden with fuel that its wingtips dragged on the runway took off from an airport in the Mojave Desert. It landed nine days later, becoming the first plane to circle the globe nonstop without refueling. That plane was designed by Burt Rutan, an aerospace engineer who would go on to design SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the world’s first manned commercial spacecraft. Having designed nearly four hundred unique aircraft, Rutan’s bold configurations stand out in an engineering practice that is necessarily shaped by the unforgiving science of flight. Despite these constraints, it has been Rutan’s self-imposed principles that give him the freedom, experience, and courage necessary to excel in his craft. Encoded into the shape of Rutan’s aircraft are a series of convictions, and a clear point of view emerges when you consider his body of work not as isolated designs, but as a connected ecosystem. This talk will discuss these self-referential connections, and how they can inform the way we think about our own design experience.

1. On Aircraft and Craft
Interaction 13 Conference, Toronto, Canada
January 30, 2013
Dane Petersen
@thegreatsunra
#onaircraft

2. Image Credit: Creative Commons

3. Image Credit: Creative Commons

4. Image Credit: Creative Commons

6. Image Credit: Instagram

8. Image Credit: Creative Commons

9. Image Credit: Creative Commons by Dave Malkoff

10. Image Credits: Creative Commons and Scaled Composites

11. 367 Unique Aircraft Designs

12. 367 Unique Aircraft Designs
47 First Flights

13. Lightweight, efficient aircraft.

14. design #76
rutan voyager
1986
Image Credit: Creative Commons

15. 18 Years Later…

16. designs 318 & 316
white knight & spaceshipone
2004
Image Credit: Scaled Composites

17. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

20. 1968

22. design #27
rutan variviggen
1972
Image Credit: Creative Commons

25. design #33
rutan vari-eze
1975
Image Credit: Creative Commons

26. Image Credit: Creative Commons

32. design #76
rutan voyager
1986
Image Credit: Creative Commons

39. design #281
proteus
1998
Image Credit: Creative Commons

40. Image Credit: Creative Commons

41. nasa x-38 prototype
1999
Image Credit: Creative Commons

42. Image Credit: Creative Commons

48. design #316
spaceshipone
2004
Image Credit: Scaled Composites

55. design #318
white knight
2004
Image Credit: Scaled Composites

56. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

57. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

58. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

59. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

60. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

61. Image Credit: Copyright Mike Massee & Courtesy of Scaled Composites

62. 36 Years

63. Rutan spent his entire career riffing
on a core set of design principles.

64. Rutan spent his entire career riffing
on a core set of design principles.
Rather than allowing the constraints of
his design medium to define his craft…

65. Rutan spent his entire career riffing
on a core set of design principles.
Rather than allowing the constraints of
his design medium to define his craft…
Rutan’s principles defined his craft.

67. You are a mashup of your design experience.

68. You are a mashup of your design experience.
The focus of your expertise is your craft.

69. You are a mashup of your design experience.
The focus of your expertise is your craft.
You construct the narrative of your craft.

71. Thank you.
@thegreatsunra