The California desert wind was gusty last week, and the chase plane radioed the pilot that he was coming in a little high on final approach to Mojave Airport, 75 miles north of Los Angeles. But Dick Rutan, 48, was determined not to be waved off. "You betcha I'm going to land the first time," he said, and brought his graceful, eye-catching craft in for a perfect landing. Rutan, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, could be excused for being impatient. He and his copilot, Jeana Yeager, 34, had just spent 111 hours aboard the experimental aircraft Voyager without stopping or...
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