"WHAT'S NEXT, RUTAN? - Scaled Composites' high-altitude Proteus aircraft, a typically unconventional design by Burt Rutan, flies over the Mojave Desert in 1999"
Posted on 07/21/2007 9:31:59 AM PDT by BenLurkin
MOJAVE - Northrop Grumman Corp. will assume complete ownership of Mojave-based Scaled Composites under an agreement signed July 5, company officials said Friday. The agreement will increase the defense giant's ownership from 40% to 100%, said Dan McClain, corporate director of media relations for Northrop Grumman. Terms of the deal were not released.
Scaled Composites President Burt Rutan and the executive team will remain in place, McClain said, and the company will continue to operate as a separate entity within Northrop Grumman.
"We don't expect any operational or management changes," said Kevin Mickey, chief financial officer for Scaled Composites.
Founded by Rutan in 1982, Scaled Composites gained worldwide fame three years ago with the Rutan-designed SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded manned space program.
The spacecraft, built with funding from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, made three successful forays into suborbital space over Mojave in 2004. The last two flights captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
"We recognize the innovative and entrepreneurial qualities of Scaled Composites is a good fit with our ongoing efforts to define the future of aeronautics and spaceflight," McClain said.
Both parties felt Scaled Composites could benefit from the broad resources of an industry giant, he said.
In addition to its entry into spaceflight, Scaled Composites has a history of vehicle design, specialty composite design, analysis and fabrication and flight test.
Among the company's products are the high-altitude Proteus aircraft and transglobal record-setting GlobalFlyer. It also produced the X-47A Pegasus unmanned air vehicle for Northrop Grumman.
The success of SpaceShipOne helped jump-start the burgeoning commercial spaceflight industry and led directly to one of the first commercial ventures to promise large-scale operations for suborbital spaceflight.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
"WHAT'S NEXT, RUTAN? - Scaled Composites' high-altitude Proteus aircraft, a typically unconventional design by Burt Rutan, flies over the Mojave Desert in 1999"
Ping
Well there goes the hope that the average person will be able to reach for the stars with the “big boys” coming in a taking over all of the small guys with big ideas!
I totally disagree. Northrop Grumman is a conglomerate where the acquired companies get a new name, access to almost unlimited IR&D funds, and keep their individual cultures. This can be bad when the culture of the orginal company is not that good, but in this case, it will be a good thing.
Rutan supposedly had access to all that when Grumman was a 40% owner but that means Rutan still had control of the company. Now, despite Grummans assertions that nothing will change at Scaled they hold the reins. I’m not convinced they will let Burt be Burt. Time will tell.
Saganite,
I can't go to Oshkosh or Burt's Forums their this year, if he to be in attendance.
But if my memory is correct, Burt had a pretty bad heart attack a few years back and in fact no longer can fly as pilot in command.
I hope his health is well and this is not an indication as to where it might be. I would love to see him do one more homebuilt an LSA by Burt would be neat, or even a < 254 lb ultralight would be fun.
Don’t kid yourself, Burt has been thru this type of corporate marriage before and it did not work out. I’ll wage some Mesquite smoked baby back ribs that Burt will be sick of it once again and be gone either voluntarily or otherwise.
Burt’s type of creativity and corporate America do not mesh well, never has, never will.
Composite materials are the future, and Grumman needs to keep up with the other big boys, such as ATK which recently acquired a small aerospace firm specializing in composites/space engineering, as well. Nothing nefarious about this at all.
Having worked at Scaled Composites in Montrose, CO I must say that the writing is probably on the wall for the Mojave Company. You probably haven't heard of a Montrose branch. That's because after having trouble with our bottom line being in cahoots with Burt Rutan we found a large company to buy us out and when our bottom line failed to improve we were bought out by another larger company. When the bottom line failed to satisfy the larger company we closed our doors and a fine r&d company with a lot of talented engineers and fabricators ceased to exist. Burt Rutan and many other people including some of our engineers are cutting edge innovators and people like them are the reason our country is so great but they are finding it harder and harder to develop new technologies and to be inventive because the big money companies that now own almost everything squeeze them out of their budgets. I think the solution is for the small companies to resist selling out to large corporations and continue their cutting edge work while taking on enough boring jobs to keep their bills and workforce paid. Too often today, companies are formed with the idea that if they show promise and profitability, they can sell out for a profit. I hope that Burt Rutan can continue to do what he does best and I'm fairly confident that, given his drive, talent, and inteligence he'll do whatever he needs to go on innovating and exploring new things.
I just think it takes a lot of capital to grow significantly, but you can always find a niche somewhere if thats all you want. Unfortunately, that was not enough for my former employers.
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