Burt Rutan’s space exploration dreams were realized on June 21, 2004 when Mike Melvill piloted his creation SpaceShipOne. Now with a new team and new ambitions Burt is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund RutanRC, remote controlled aircraft based on the design of SpaceShipOne.
Just as the spacecraft did in 2004 this RC version can be attached to a large White Knight glider and then launched before SS1 flies under its own power. Dan Kreigh and Jeff Corsiglia are Burt’s two partners, bringing experience in engineering, flight development and manufacturing to the project.
SS1 units will use ducted fan construction with a rotor diameter of 50 millimeters. Two Elevon servos and two feather servos will control the craft while in the air. A three cell, lithium polymer battery with 1050 milliAmp hours of charge will power the unit and a miniature five channel receiver will act as the controller.
Most of both planes are constructed from expanded foam with reinforcements in the high stress areas. Labeling is added to mimic SpaceShipOne and the White Knight, and this first run of aircraft will have additional branding to show that the user was a Kickstarter backer.
This entire campaign is done professionally and with a love for the idea of space exploration. Rutan definitely encourages users to not just fly his planes but to also push the sport forward and take these ideas to another level. Burt is already hard at work on another generation of RC plane, the SkiGull, that will act as a glider that can land on water, snow or other surfaces.
$220,000 is being raised during the Kickstarter campaign period, ending on May 26, 2015. This is a fairly large amount for a crowdfunding campaign but the project is running at a huge scale with heavy publicity and the funding will go toward its initial production run. Kickstarter rewards are expected to ship in November 2015.