Voyager Ends 5-Day Flight--Both Pilots Tired, Shaky : 11,857-Mi. Trip Breaks 2 Records

Two elated but exhausted pilots suffering from fatigue and dehydration landed their record-setting experimental airplane Voyager--little more than a flying fuel tank--in the Mojave Desert today after flying nearly 12,000 miles and five days without refueling.

The pilots, Dick Rutan, 47, and Jeana Yeager, 33, broke two international records during 111 hours of lazy loops aloft over California, flying the Voyager farther than any other piston-engine craft without refueling in a warm-up for an unprecedented around-the-world trip on one fill-up.

Both had difficulty walking when they emerged from their tiny cockpit. “It will take them a while to get their land legs back,” Voyager team spokesman Peter Riva said.

“I feel kind of worn down. It was kind of fatiguing being cramped up so long,” Yeager said, fighting back a faint and grabbing for balance at a podium set up in front of the plane.

“Our heads are still in kind of a roar,” she said.

Suffering Dehydration

Crew members rushed to prop her up. Crew doctor George Yutlia said that Yeager was suffering from dehydration but that her condition was not serious.

Rutan looked gaunt but said he felt “great” despite confinement in the cramped cockpit, no bigger than the size of a pup tent. “I felt like I’d been in there all my life.”

During its back-and-forth trip between San Francisco and San Luis Obispo, the plane averaged 103 m.p.h. and 29 miles per gallon of fuel, compared with 8 m.p.g. for a normal twin-engine plane.

At 5:20 a.m., Voyager, cruising a little under 10,000 feet and averaging about 100 m.p.h., passed the last measured point on the north-south course it began flying last Thursday with an official record distance of 11,601.9 statute miles.

Under a sky of puffy gray clouds, Voyager touched down at 6:36 a.m. at Mojave Airport after logging 11,857.39 miles.

The plane taxied to a hangar, with the crew signaling thumbs up to a crowd of 200 well-wishers and reporters.

Examination Scheduled

The plane will be examined by officials of the National Aeronautics Assn., who will attempt to verify the distance the plane flew without refueling.

NAA officials sealed the gas tank before the plane left to guarantee no mid-air refueling.

Voyager surpassed the mark listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for duration of flight without refueling of 84 hours and 2 minutes, set in 1931.

The distance record of 11,337 miles of unrefueled flight on a closed course was set in 1962 by an Air Force B-52 jet bomber.

“We anticipated a lot of problems,” Rutan said Monday night by radio. “Probably one of the biggest is . . . how to survive. Actually, we’ve become pretty adapted to these environments.”

Crew spokesman Lee Herron said Rutan spent part of Monday evening watching a two-inch battery-operated television set he “smuggled” aboard.

The Voyager actually began its record flight Wednesday but had to land at Vandenberg Air Force Base after seven hours and 500 miles to fix a malfunctioning rear propeller.

Engines Hampered Sleep

Wedged into the tiny cabin, Rutan and Yeager, no relation to famed test pilot Chuck Yeager, took turns flying and resting, curled up in a rear compartment of the cabin, which is only about four feet wide. Their biggest deterrent to sleep was the noise from the two piston engines--one in front and one in back.