Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1228683
64 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2020 Rutan: The reason that it was natural selection is that, initially, there were tens of thousands of attempts to build airplanes. When people realized, even without the internet, that a cou- ple of guys had flown, and their background was in repairing bicycles, everybody had to try it. There was no regulation stating that you couldn't try. Are there tens of thousands of attempts going on right now to find break- throughs for better airplanes, business jets, or airlines? No. The reason that a 787 looks like a 707 is that Boeing bets their whole com- pany on a new airplane's success, and they're unwilling to take a risk to try something com- pletely new. Matties: In your presentation, you looked at the past 40 years. You showed the Blackbird SR-71 and the B-70, which seemed like very advanced planes back then, even by today's standards. Rutan: They were advanced. We called the B-70 "the savior." Occasionally, people would see this plane overhead, but the opportunities to look at it up close were tiny. They did do a roll- out. Around 800 people showed up for the roll- out. Pictures don't do justice to show you how big and beautiful it was, so few people knew. They had to have a special hangar because of the two tails instead of one. In those days, they would build engineering offices and flight test pilot offices outside the hanger. The B-70 sat so high that you could build them inside the hangar. After walking through a large office, you opened a small door, and right in front of you was this big nose wheel. Then, you craned your neck up and saw these enormous, square, supersonic inlets. Turning, you saw the huge extended nose with a canard wing. It was so freaking beautiful that almost everybody who had that experience said, "Jesus Christ!" That's why the B-70 was called "the savior." SpaceShipOne is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It hangs between Charles Lindberg's Spirit of St. Louis, left, and Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1, above right, in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall.