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GlobalFlyer Aims To Go Voyager One Better

Posted by timothy on from the round-and-round dept.

LucidBeast writes "We all remember Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world in 1986 on one tank of gas. Now Voyager pilot Steve Fossett plans to do it solo with a jet powered GlobalFlyer. See also New York Times article about it (registration required). The idea of the solo flight according to this story originated with the Voyager builder Dick Rutan." Update: 12/01 13:25 GMT by T : Note, the original submission reversed the roles of Rutan and Fossett; Fossett is the pilot, while Rutan (and his company, Scaled Composites) is the builder.

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Article rewrite by mj_1903 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We all remember Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world in 1986 on one tank of gas. Now Voyager builder Burt Rutan plans to do it solo with the jet powered GlobalFlyer. This is the same Burt Rutan who also built the X Price Winner SpaceShipOne. See also New York Times article about it (registration required). The idea of the solo flight according to this story originated with the Voyager pilot Dick Rutan. Please fact check your articles before posting.

  2. what an ambition by Plugoor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    first the universe and then the earth!

  3. Speed vs. fuel consumption? by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Just wondering: given a certain design, isn't the fuel consumption very dependent on speed? From what I understand, there's some exponential relation between speed and air drag. Like, go 2x as fast, 2^something more drag.

    When you fly around the world on one tank of gas, I'd think a crucial issue is to maximise the distance/fuel ratio. Given above exponential relation, it seems to me, flying slow would help. I remember NASA built some solar-powered, high-flying plane once, that could stay airborne for very long (effectively indefinite if parts kept working). I also remember that thingie was flying at relative low speed, presumably for same reason.

    If you go too slow, you'll drop out of the sky (duhhh...). If you go fast, you need less time but burn fuel like crazy. Also, for slow flying you might need more wing surface, read: increase the weight of the aircraft. So where's an optimum here? Anyone got some (informed) insights?

  4. Choice of propulsion by bjomo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Scramjet anyone?

  5. Re:Speaking of such flights.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The full passenger load of a 747 would be around 200 pounds per passenger x 500 passengers, or about 100,000 pounds. I don't think this is enough additional fuel to get around the world. I remember asking the pilot of a LAX - Sydney flight how much fuel he expected to have on landing, and he said about 20K pounds, something like 1.5 hours cruising. Using that equivalency, you could infer that you need 13.3 K per hour, times 50 hours, or about 670K pounds to make it all the way around. Don't think any 747 can carry that much weight in anything.

    Also of interest is that the Air Force held the longest unrefueled flight record before the Voyager flight, at something like 12,500 miles in a B-52.