Voyager to Touch Down at Smithsonian

Voyager, the spindly airplane Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew in their record-setting global flight in December, has been loaded onto a truck for a cross-country trip to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, where it will be permanently displayed.

The 111-foot-wide aircraft, which made the round-the-globe flight without refueling, was packed Thursday onto a truck that will take it on a circuitous route to the nation’s capital.

“Voyager will be moved intact . . . through the states of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois to the Experimental Aircraft Assn. Convention Air Show in Oshkosh, Wis.,” said spokesman Lee Herron at the Mojave Civilian Test Flight Center, where the plane was built and first flown.

The Voyager is to go on display in Oshkosh from July 31 until Aug. 7 before resuming its trip to Washington, where it will be permanently displayed in the front hall of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

Voyager officials are uncertain when the plane will reach Washington.

Crew spokeswoman Chris Dettlaff said preparing the plane for the trip took some ingenuity. “It’s on the truck sideways so that the wings hang over the end of the truck and over the cab. We had to get special permits to truck it through the states because it’s too long and too wide,” Dettlaff said. “It’s a normal wide load.”