Customer Reviews

Building Rutan Composites: Build Your Own Aircraft

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Informative, useful, and I suspect inadvertently, hugely entertaining.

Burt Rutan, looking a little like Mike Nesmith of The Monkees fame, complete with cows lick, explains and demonstrates moldless composite layup techniques with elan, enthusiasm and authority as does Mike Melvill, despite dressing like a Blue Peter presenter (venerable UK children's TV show). Mike's crisp South African vowels constrast with Burt's rather more laid back drawl.

It becomes clear through the course of the video, just how skilled they both are, as well as how well they work together as a team.

Admittedly though, presenting to camera directly does not appear to be Burt's strong suit, in the introduction to the video and the roundup at the end, he has a hunted look in his eye as he reads the prescripted inspirational blurb. Frankly, it wasn't needed, the very real enthusiasm for the subject shone through as soon as both men got their hands dirty.

The viewer will be left informed and enthused, despite production values akin to an eigthies amateur porn video.

This, to my knowledge at least, is still some of the best source material for any composite homebuilder, despite being around thirty years old.

Building Rutan Composites, despite being 30 years old and the video quality not the best, is a very useful tool to have in building composite aircraft. Ideally, this DVD should be used in conjunction with Moldless Composite Sandwich Aircraft Construction by Burt Rutan. Combining the 2 together, gives the novice kit builder a better understanding of the correct techniques to ensure your kit aircraft is 100% safe.

Buy the book and DVD together, watch, read and learn about composite layups. Then purchase the training kit listed in the front of the book and have a go. Its cheaper than doing a composite course!