Steve Fossett and the GlobalFlyer Scheduled to Land Thursday

By Linda Orlando

The mission began Monday morning, when the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer took off from Salina, Kansas. The circumnavigation has had to follow a strict set of rules laid out by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), the governing body of aviation record attempts. The fact that this flight is a "first" doesn’t make it an official world record eligible for the Guinness World Records book; Steve would have to do the circumnavigation trip faster or higher than any other person in order to claim an official world record. Even still, there are at least three and possibly up to seven different world records that could be broken with this single flight. The exact number of records broken will be posted on the mission’s website after the flight is completed.

The FAI’s rules state that a record attempt such as this one must start and finish at the same airfield and cross all meridians of the globe. The length of the trip must not be less than 36,787.559 kilometers, which is the length of the Tropic of Cancer. The rules don’t require the pilot to follow the imaginary line of the Tropic of Cancer itself, but the distance flown must exceed it. If a pilot were required to follow that line, he would not be able to direct his course to take advantage of jet stream winds. The course must also be kept away from the North and South "Frigid Zones" defined by the FAI.

The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer is a single engine turbofan aircraft specifically designed for nonstop global circumnavigation by a solo pilot in a pressurized cabin, with no passengers. Sophisticated aerodynamics engineering is the key to the aircraft’s ability to fly such a long distance without refueling. In fact, the plane is so aerodynamically perfect that the only practical way to land it is with drag parachutes. Because there is only one landing required, the chutes are not detachable and require significant time to be reset before the plane can take off again.

With the plane being capable of speeds over 285mph, the flight is expected to be completed within 80 hours. After taking off from Salina, the plane followed the jet stream winds across the Atlantic to the U.K. From there, Steve headed southeast across the Mediterranean and the Gulf before turning east toward Pakistan, India, China, and Japan. The final leg of his journey took the plane out over the Pacific toward Hawaii and ultimately the continental United States. In the course of his epic journey, Steve has flown over or near many major cities including Montreal, London, Paris, Rome, Calcutta, Shanghai, Honolulu, and Los Angeles. He has also crossed major flight routes, so sharp-eyed passengers on commercial airliners may have spotted the GlobalFlyer as it flew several miles above them.

On the official mission page, a note says the team is growing more optimistic every hour, as the scheduled landing time approaches just after 1:00 CST. Steve has pressed on with the flight relentlessly even after his plane developed a serious problem with its fuel system early on in the mission. A mysterious fuel leak somehow caused the GlobalFlyer to lose 2600 lbs of fuel within the first three and a half hours of the flight. Wednesday, the team nearly scrubbed the flight in Hawaii after discovering the fuel problems. Mission leaders said that it appeared for a while as if there was 15 percent less fuel on board than had been expected.

Although there were concerns that the flight might not be completed due to the fuel problems, Steve now sounds more upbeat about the situation and says he has "every hope of making it to Salina." Early Thursday morning he was southwest of Los Angeles and traveling at about 250 mph. The mission’s website says that during the morning the GlobalFlyer will pass near Catalina Island and Los Angeles, CA; Kingman, AZ; Farmington, NM; and Garden City, KS, before landing in Salina. The plane will be at an altitude of about 45,000 feet altitude, so people may be able to see contrails as it passes by overhead.

The mission’s website has a section devoted to questions posed by people the world over who are interested in specific details of the flight not covered regularly by the media—such as how Steve is going to the toilet, why he isn’t flying the other direction around the globe, and whether or not he would be able to feed live video from the plane on subsequent flights. For answers to such questions and to learn more about the flight and its pilot, or if you have a question of your own to pose, visit the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer Home Page at http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com.