The Friday Brief: Dick Rutan Flies West

Wag-Aero Gets Spruced-Up; Southwest Mourns the loss of Colleen Barrett

Right at a week ago, I was on a layover in Omaha—one of my favorite cities in our system. That’s a good thing, I suppose, because I go there a lot. Anyway, Jackson Street Booksellers is my absolute must-go haunt there, as their shelves of aviation books are beyond impressive. That’s right, shelves. There is a section for military aviation and another for civil aviation, and they’re both rather large. I suppose that with several factors playing in, Omaha is swarming with old school aviators, and as they pass on, their libraries wind up on Jackson Street.

As tornados bore down on me, I grabbed a couple books last week, including a copy of Voyager, written by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, details the pair’s round-the-world, nonstop, unrefueled flight in 1986. Voyager, designed by Dick’s brother, Burt Rutan, was built by using a grassroots fundraising campaign—we’d call it crowdfunding these days—and I own a belt buckle that was one of those fundraising efforts. I wear it often. The book was autographed by both Dick and Jeana.

Dick and Jeana absolutely pushed the limits of people and machines with their record flight, and the whole thing almost ended on the takeoff roll, as voyager scuffed its wingtips after the ground attitude and airflow pushed the already-sagging wings down. The raw emotion at about 2:45 in the following video still gets me all emotional.

Their achievement notched what, to me at least, is the last of the great records for aviation. Approaching four decades after the thing happened, I still stop and stare at Voyager whenever I’m in the National Air and Space Museum or passing through Seattle-Tacoma airport, where a replica of Voyager hangs.

I posted the photo of my bookstore find on my social media and a friend commented, asking what Dick was up to these days. I did some quick math and figured he had to be beyond 80 years old; “Probably not much these days,” I quipped.

As it turns out, Dick was on his way out—he passed away this week at age 85.

---

Aircraft Spruce acquires Wag-Aero, sort of: If you go looking to buy something from Wag-Aero, you’ll find the website redirects to a brief press release by Aircraft Spruce, announcing the acquisition of Wag-Aero’s sales and distribution divisions. Problem is that Aero Fabricators, the Wag-Aero parts fabrication division, has its website nested within the Wag-Aero website and every bit of that redirects to the Aircraft Spruce site listed above. It seems that all acquisitions come with some level of details that are overlooked, but hopefully that will be sorted soon.

The airlines lost a legendary leader this week as well, as Colleen Barrett passed away, age 79. Barrett was legal secretary for Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest, and rose to serve as president and CEO of the airline. She’s credited for creating and elevating much of the company’s legendary culture.

Surely, you can’t be serious: A young movie critic watched Airplane! for the first time and reviewed it. The quotable cult classic is revered in aviation circles as we draw on zingers from the script daily, and the thought that anyone could have made it to adulthood without having seen this movie boggles this aviator’s mind. At my last airline, I was paired with a 24-year-old pilot who had never seen it, either. I downloaded the movie and tried to make him watch it while we were in training. “I just can’t,” he said. “This material is just too cringeworthy.” I think was his comment. “But you won’t get a single joke in this industry if you don’t watch it,” I cautioned. Unlike any other aviation film where we all roast the inaccuracies, the zany ride never fails to draw a chuckle when I watch it again. What’s your favorite line or scene from the film? Let me know in the comments.