Building Rutan Composites: Build Your Own Aircraft

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!

I AM REALLY SORRY ABOUT THAT REVIEW, BECAUSE RUTAN IS THE THE BEST, BUT THE QUALITY OF THE VIDEO IS REALLY VERY BAD. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE DETAILS MORE CLEAR AND NOT IN LOW DEFINITION AND WITH PROBLEMS WHEN RUNNING. I COULD NOT RUN THE DVD ON MY COMPUTER BUT ONLY ON DVD CONSOLE. SORRY RUTAN !!!!!. YOU SHOULD GIVE THIS VIDEO AWAY FREE ON THE INTERNET, BECAUSE OF THE LOW QUALITY.

This video is a companion to Burt's book Moldless Composite Sandwich Aircraft Construction. As such, I think that you should buy both at the same time since the video covers some things that the book does not. Even though both the book and the video were done several yeas ago, most of the information is still relevant yet. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, the video is necessary to fully understand what he is doing. The strength test of a composite construction versus and aluminum structure, at the beginning of the material is a little on the comedic side but other than that it is very useful. I recommend it, with the book.

Shipping was fine but unfortunately this cd is about a 5th generation copy and the quality of the recording is poor. On the plus side the info I wanted concerning how to work fiberglass was discernible so the cd served its purpose for me.

It does not go into more advanced modern methods, but it covers the tried and true construction methods. I was a little disappointed it did not spend more time on the repair processes. You must remember this was taped in the late 70's or early 80's.

Im actually shocked. All it is is a dub from VHS tape from the 80's low quality, even lost its vertical hold (if your old enough to remember that one). Its just guys in a garage showing you how to work with fiberglass. They could be building anything with fiberglass. This only had exactly 1.5 minutes of titan aircraft flying at the end.

I do reccomend it a lot, it will save a lot of time during your construction following the pieces of adive given.