Being a Rutan appreciator (please don't fanboy me!) to the extent that I devoted two years of my time researching his work and doing a comprehensive website on his work, I do agree that many of his designs build on previous experience... BUT:
1°) Pick any patent at random and you'll find that even a patented invention has to list a series of earlier patents that were involved in the creative process.
2°) We all use the same veggies and meat to cook, and have done so for thousands of years... yet there are still new kids on the block that come every now and then and totally redefine how we eat and what can be done.
3°) There are only 11 notes in music. If we said we've heard it all because no new notes can be invented, it would be a sad world... The combination of existing elements, however limited in numbers, makes for an infinity of possibilities.
In the same way, I'd say it's not so much the fact that Rutan did or didn't invent stuff... it's about how he picked the right ingredients to come up with new concepts and how he successfully marketed them. And it's not so much about revolutionizing aviation.... in the end there will always be a fuselage, wings or lifting surface, and control surfaces to change roll, pitch and yaw. Check out Aerofiles some time and consider how many aircraft were devised in just North America, and how many really stand out as superior designs in the end. The engineers that created the Northrop B-2, the Boeing 707, the Lockheed F-104 or the Piper Cub, to name but a few, did not invent ANYTHING! Yet they managed to combine and refine existing features and incorporate them together into sound, desirable and efficient machines.
Now if you asked me what Rutan DID revolutionize, I'd say it like this:
1°) from a technological point of view, he contributed in making composite building accessible;
2°) from a marketing point of view, he developed a niche that didn't exist before: the homebuilt canard;
3°) from a historical/sociological point of view, he cristalized all the dreams of the newer generations and recaptured the spirit of invention of the early pioneers, making the public look up to the skies with the same expectation that made crowds cheer over Lindbergh, Earhart and many others;
4°) from an industrial point of view, he provided many companies with an economical, independent workshop and engineering team to pursue programs that would not/could not be developed inhouse without months of unnecessary additional paperwork and millions more dollars;
5°) finally, he has proved to the public and the industry that one can set up a space program for 20 times less than the NASA price tag and carry it through!
On a side note, the Bede BD-5 pictured above was the last Bede design that Burt Rutan actually worked on before setting up his own Rutan Aircraft Factory... and although he did not design it, he most certainly input quite a bit of his ideas into it.
