Fossett takes off to break record

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Millionaire adventurer
Steve Fossett took off in an experimental plane on Wednesday on
an 80-hour flight that he hopes will set a nonstop distance
record.

The GlobalFlyer aircraft, which has a wingspan as wide as
an 11-story building is tall, lifted off around 7:20 a.m. after
rolling ponderously down a rented runway used by NASA’s space
shuttles at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Fossett, 61, had initially planned to start the
record-breaking attempt on Tuesday but had to delay by a day
due to a fuel leak.

Fossett is out to break by 700 miles the 26,366-mile
nonstop distance record set in 1986 by Dick Rutan and Jeana
Yeager in a nine-day flight.

After taking off from Florida, he will fly over the
Atlantic, cross Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, China, Japan, the
Pacific Ocean, Mexico, and the United States and then back over
the Atlantic before landing at Kent International Airport
outside London.

Fossett needs to get GlobalFlyer, which is sponsored by
Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways, up to an altitude of
about 45,000 feet to take advantage of the naturally occurring
high-speed jet stream flowing from the west to the east over
the Northern Hemisphere.

In addition, temperatures at takeoff had to be 54 degrees
Fahrenheit or cooler for GlobalFlyer’s single engine to build
enough thrust to ease the craft off the runway. The plane
weighs more than 11 tonnes when fully fueled.

Fossett, who last year successfully completed the first
solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the globe, also holds various
ballooning records.