Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1228683
APRIL 2020 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 69 Matties: My question was around the light twin. When you lose one engine, the natural instinct, perhaps, is to accelerate, but wouldn't you be safer if you turned off the second engine? Rutan: First of all, they have heavy wing loading. You're going to go right into the trees or the houses. It's better to hit the trees with the wings level than upside-down. Again, peo- ple who do that also have fatal acci- dents because they hit the trees. The people that do what you need to do to keep control don't always do it right. It's too com- plex to list all of the reasons, but I can tell you confidently that, statistically, twins are more dangerous than singles. They keep sell- ing them with this impression that they're safe. But you cannot get in trouble with a Boomer- ang. You need the rudder pedal for taxiing on the ground. You don't need them at all in the air. It's by far my best work. Matties: You talked a bit about engineering and some of the principles and rules. What advice would you give to young engineers that are coming into a new career? Rutan: Ask them what they like to do. Are they attracted to the idea of being the inventor of a breakthrough? If they are, they have to work very differently than almost any engineer that comes in and goes to work. When someone comes in out of college, they might think, "I don't like what I see out there. There's not much going on since the '60s that is break- through in nature, and I want to fix that." That sort of person would get totally different advice from me than someone who says, "I'm in engi- neering because I heard it pays well, and I can live in San Diego, which is a nice place." A recent graduate might also think, "I have all this cool software. I know how to run it, and maybe I'll invent some new software, but I'm going to use it to be more efficient in my work, be more productive, and therefore make more money and be able to retire." There's nothing wrong with feeling that way. I have no idea how to train someone to be innovative. My expertise has been knowing the environ- ment to put him in, and that is to not burden him with the regulations of a company. Let me give you an example in the computer field. Around '83, IBM finally figured out that there is money to be made in what Steve Jobs was doing at Apple, so they went out and made the right decision. They didn't try to develop one in-house; instead, they took a few smart people and put them in a hotel and didn't burden them with any of their in-house regulations. They invented the IBM PC. After it was a huge suc- cess, they thought, "We know how to do this. Let's do another one that's more affordable," and they developed the PC Junior in-house. IBM only sold a few of the PC Junior units, but they acted like entrepreneurs to do the IBM PC. I gave a talk to General Motors, and I ended up taking them to the High Sierras above the timberline. I gave them boxes. I said, "Teams will be made up of a member of Scaled Com- posites and an engineer from General Motors. Here's a box for each team. Go where you can't see anybody else and figure out a solution to our problem that we're trying to solve. Don't come back until you've figured out something or it gets dark." The next day, their management showed up. I'm talking about the people that have silk handkerchiefs in their coat jackets. I made them show and tell, and I concluded that the teams were too large by a factor of two. They spent almost all the time trying to convince