Steve Fossett Seeks Nonstop Distance Record
Feb. 8, 2006 — -- Steve Fossett took off this morning from a runway in Florida built for space shuttle landings. If all goes well, he will not touch down again for 80 hours, not until he has flown more than anyone else ever has nonstop.
Fossett, who already claims 109 records for aviation, ballooning, sailing and other adventures, is going for one more. His flight plan takes him over the Atlantic, North Africa, the Middle East, India and south of Japan as he heads out over the Pacific and then back over Baja California and southern Texas on the way back to Florida.
But if fuel levels are good and the winds are with him, he will not stop there. He will cross the Atlantic a second time, planning to land at Kent International Airport in England.
"I'm going after the ultimate distance for an aircraft," he said, "farther than any kind of aircraft, balloon or airplane has ever flown before."
Fossett used the same plane, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, that he used a year ago to become the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world. That flight was shorter -- only about 67 hours. He got by on catnaps and strawberry low-fat milkshakes, and plans to do the same on this flight.
This week's flight should be about 13 hours and 3,000 miles longer than Fossett's round-the-world flight of March 1-3, 2005. The plane, designed more for fuel efficiency than speed or comfort, cruises at speeds of about 300 mph.
The shuttle landing facility at the Kennedy Space Center is 15,000 feet long, and the GlobalFlyer took off this morning with only about 2,000 feet to spare. More than 80 percent of the plane's liftoff weight was fuel.
Sir Richard Branson, the chairman of Virgin Atlantic Airways and a fellow adventurer, has backed the flight.
Six hours after takeoff, Virgin Atlantic quoted Fossett when he called in to his control center by satellite phone: "Takeoff was a bit scary to say the least. I had to use most of the runway to get off the ground. This was particularly hairy as I couldn't have aborted even if I had wanted to. To make matters worse, two birds hit the aircraft on takeoff. Luckily, there doesn't seem to be any sign of damage."
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