I was in the Rotax booth on Tuesday shooting avideo on the new 915 iS when Burt Rutan, towing a small entourage, popped in. He hadn't heard about the new engine, but when Marc Becker rattled off the specs, Rutan pronounced it the perfect engine for his new SkiGull amphibian, said to be a versatile design with the capability of flying from the West Coast to Hawaii if not beyond. Rutan confessed to doing something he said he had never done before: showing off a design before the airplane is built.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/ownership/airventure-rutan-likes-rotax-and-swift-bets-big-on-fuel