Fossett aims for longest nonstop flight record

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) – Millionaire adventurer Steve
Fossett sets out on Tuesday for what he hopes to be the longest
nonstop flight ever made by an aircraft.

The 61-year-old Fossett, who already holds piloting,
ballooning, sailing and other endurance records, was not
entirely confident about his planned 80-hour trip into the
record books.

“It will be very close,” Fossett told a preflight news
conference. “I’m stretching the limits of the airplane.”

Fossett was to take off shortly after dawn from the Kennedy
Space Center’s 15,000 foot-long shuttle runway. His team,
sponsored by Virgin Atlantic Airways, chose the spaceport as a
launch site because its experimental plane, the GlobalFlyer,
needs a long runway to build up enough speed to leave the
ground.

The plane, which weighs about 3,500 pounds empty, swells to
a gross weight of more than 11 tons when fully fueled.

Fossett knows what takeoff feels like in the plane, which
has a wingspan as wide as an 11-story building. Last year, he
set a record aboard Virgin Atlantic’s GlobalFlyer for the first
non-stop solo flight around the world, which took him 67 hours.

But the aircraft lost more than 3,000 pounds of fuel,
during the climb to its 45,000-foot cruising altitude due to a
technical glitch, and Fossett was dissatisfied it did not
perform to its maximum capability.

“It’s a matter of personal pride,” he said.

Fossett’s team has laid out a 26,000-mile voyage that spans
the globe and then some. After taking off from Florida, he
plans to fly over the Atlantic, cross Africa, Saudi Arabia,
India, China, Japan, the Pacific Ocean, Mexico, the United
States and back over the Atlantic before landing at Kent
International Airport outside London.

The flight is expected to last 80 hours.

“I do this as a matter of personal satisfaction,” Fossett
said. “To achieve something that is difficult and that
stretches my ability to do it.”

Fossett hopes to surpass by 700 miles the current
long-distance, nonstop airplane record held by Dick Rutan and
Jeanna Yeager for their 1986 flight in Voyager. He also aims to
surpass a 1999 ballooning distance record set in 1999 by Brian
Jones and Bertrand Piccard.

“I want to make this the longest flight by any type of
aircraft,” Fossett said.