Tail Wind Complicating Fossett Flight
Tail Wind Complicating Fossett Flight
Published: 2/7/06, 6:46 AM EDT
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A tail wind instead of a head wind was complicating Steve Fossett's quest to break the 20-year-old record for the longest flight.
"At the moment it's 50-50," the aviation adventurer said early Tuesday about the chances his spindly experimental airplane will launch on schedule at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
He had hoped to barrel down a three-mile runway later Tuesday morning in a venture filled with perils, including the combustible danger of taking off with 18,000 gallons of fuel in a light-weight experimental plane.
Ahead lies sleep deprivation and the unpredictability of the weather.
He hopes to fly 27,012, breaking a 20-year-old distance record.
"There is a risk in the takeoff. There is a risk during the flight of running out of fuel or other mechanical failure in an experimental aircraft," Fossett said Monday at a news conference accompanied by Richard Branson, whose company, Virgin Atlantic, is sponsoring the flight.
"I'm not confident of success because of what I'm trying to do ... We calculate that I will be able to complete the flight and have a success, but it will be very close," Fossett said.
Flying at an altitude of 45,000 feet, Fossett's 80-hour journey will take him from the Kennedy Space Center eastward around the world once. Then somewhere over Georgia he will decide whether he has enough fuel to cross the Atlantic a second time and head for a landing outside London.
"You never know with these things when you're trying something new what can happen," Branson said. "This is all experimental."
Fossett said the greatest danger is during takeoff. He must decide halfway into the 1-minute-and-20-second takeoff whether to abort since his plane will need the other half of the runway to slow down.
It's the first time an experimental airplane built by the private sector has taken off from Cape Canaveral. The glider-like plane with the 114-foot wingspan is the same aircraft Fossett flew last year to break another record.
Last March, he became the first person to fly solo nonstop, without refueling, around the globe in 67 hours. During the takeoff, he lost 3,100 pounds of fuel from a leak but still landed with a reserve of 1,500 pounds of fuel.
The amount of fuel left over made Fossett realize that the plane hadn't flown to its full capacity and wasn't ready for retirement to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
"We have designed this flight to use the full capability of this airplane, to fly further than any plane has ever flown," Fossett said.
In case he needs to bail out, it is equipped with a parachute pack holding a one-man raft and a satellite rescue beacon.
If Fossett completes this 3 1/2-day trip, he will surpass the previous airplane record of 24,987 miles set in 1986 as well as a balloon record of 25,361 miles set in 1999.
The trip requires permission from nations around the globe. Libya was the first nation to grant permission but Fossett's team is still waiting for approval from China and Iran. Fossett said he expects China's permission and has an alternate route if Iran doesn't agree to the flight path.
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Credit Bell South
