Slashdot Mirror
GlobalFlyer 'Round The World Solo Flight Takes Off
bryanthompson writes "The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer took off from the Salina Municipal Airport this evening at about 6:47 CST. The Salina Airport was chosen for its central location, and the fact that it is one of the few air strips long enough for the flyer to take off successfully. The trip around the world is expected to take about 80 hours, with speeds averaging 285 mph. The craft was designed for Sir Richard Branson by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, who also designed SpaceShipOne." Steve Fossett is piloting the craft, intended (as reader aallan puts it), "to be the first solo non-stop flight around the world without refuelling."
That should read 80 days, Passepartout!!
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Live Tracking
If you fly your own plane, except for a few cases, you aren't subjected to searches. And if you are subjected to a search, it is a half-hearted, non-governmental searcn, and knives and the like are allowed (though no guns).
Anyone know how you can stay up for 80hours straight and still land a plane? I'm not talking about Viagra.
That being siad, I do think its Kinda cool that why can fly arounf the world without refueling.
sorry 'bout the mess...
I don't know if that's important, but it is the first solo non-refueling JET flight.
Fellowship 9/11
I was under the impression Rutan himself achieved this many moons ago. This one would the first jet-powered craft to do it, though.
The revolution will not be televised.
With so many stagnant, marketing-centric companies out there, it is good to see some real technical innovation come about. This is what the early inventors were all about, including the Wright Brothers; doing it to see if it can be done. Though I don't doubt that there is some profit motive, the market for this can't be the only motivator.
Hows he use the bathroom? Hope he doesn't get diarehha...haha (sp?)
An around the world flight in one of these would be much more of an accomplishment.a ft_artifacts/exhi bits.html
http://www.sprucegoose.org/aircr
I hope they have a few air strips along the way that are long enough for the flyer to land successfully - you know, in case of emergency.
This sig is intentionally blank
like Scaled Composites is going to be the high-tech aerospace leader, first SpaceShipOne then this.
Maybe they will get to Mars before NASA?
All your Sybase are belong to us.
A frazzled billionare being extracted from the remnants of his mangled craft, breathlessly explaining to a throng of reporters. "It was going quite well, but the wind just picked up so suddenly we didn't have a chance. Damnable shame, ah well on to my next silly adventure/reality show"
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/2 7/1930240&tid=14
"Solo Flyer ready for Takeoff Monday"
Mr. Rutan was accompanied by Ms. Yeager.
This kind of reminds me of the world's longest cheesecake record that someone set here a little while ago. I mean, sure, it's great to have a world record, but who cares? First solo, non-stop flight around the world, without refueling. Remove any one clause, and it's already been done.
All that said, it's a big engineering challenge to build planes that can do this. Improvement in aviation technology is still a Good Thing. So good luck to him.
Acius the unfamous
This is not an attempt at the first flight around the world without refueling. If it is, We should check out Burt Rutan for alzheimer's. See Dick Rutan's Webpage for more info.
I think that the flight you are refering to was a two person flight, and they managed to go around the world, although they had some problems with fuel management. Although no one has even flown solo around the world, he thought that that would be too easy, so he decided to challange himself, and use a jet instead of a prop. I suppose this could lead to more innovation in the idea of engine efficiency, but not all that much else (not to say that efficiency is a small matter).
Sounds like he'll be having a hell of a time trying to stay up for 80 hours surviving off his Strayberry Milkshakes! I'm guessing that he'll stink like a sailor by the time he's done though.
"Steve Fossett is piloting the craft, intended (as reader aallan puts it, is for this "to be the first solo non-stop flight around the world without refuelling."
piloting the craft, intended is for this. Come again?
That plane was so loaded with fuel on takeoff, that the rate of climb was very very slow, maybe 150 ft/minute. The wings, which were loaded with fuel would droop down and had to be supported by small wheels at the wingtips until the plane gathered enough speed for the wings to develop lift.
I wish Fosset good luck on this journey. Things will be touch and go for awhile until the fuel load has been lightened and the plane becomes responsive. A lot of things can go wrong, but hopefully improved technology will make things easier and improve his chance of success for this round the world flight.
err, well... I sortof have to take credit for the original mistake. my t key sticks sometimes. *whoops*
It got accepted, and I read through it again, then emailed the editor on duty (daddypants) before it went out to you non-subscribers... I hoped it'd be fixed in time.
The shuttle has orbitted the globe nonstop a few dozen times a pop without refueling, as have many other manned craft.
So have lighter-than-air craft, and if I'm not mistaken, propeller driven craft.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
if you fly your own plane (privately under part 91 rules) you can take just about anything you want. including guns.
All of this talk has looked over one important aspect: the jet engine he is using on his aircraft. If I remember correctly, jet engines are fuel hogs, so:
A) What kind of jet is he using?
B) How is he storing all that fuel?
This post has been filtered for sanity.
I was expecting a headline something like "Fossett bites it in a Steve Austin style crash." 6 million buck would have not done him any good either.
Check out the two websites in question: Voyager and the Virgin thingy
Doesn't the Global flyer look pretty much like the Voyager with a jet engine stuck on top?
Next will be first solo flight around the world wearing a tutu while humming "Windy"... Who's walking down the streets of the city, smiling at every body she sees... yadda yadda
Then, first solo flight around the world while building a little ship inside a bottle......
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I'm starting to get the impression that the editors inbox is so overflowing with crap, or their mail client is just so shite its unbelievable.
The amount of people like yourself who HAVE attempted to get things fixed is remarkable, I wonder if theres anyone that HAS managed to get a story modified/cancelled before it hits the front page?
liqbase
There's also an unclosed parenthesis in the end of the paragraph. Man, Slashdot has really gone downhill lately. Do the editors not even read these comments and make corrections? It'd be one thing for dupes and mistakes to happen every now and then, but it's becoming the norm. It's like they don't even care about correct grammar, spelling, or unique postings.
And they're so late in all the interesting stories anyways. Back in the day (I joined in, what, 1998?) it was the only geek site work checking. Not anymore, s'pose.
--- witty signature
The fastest jet plane in the world is still the SR71 Blackbird. It flew at Mach 3.35 or 2,275 mph (3,660 km/h). The circumference of the earth is 24,859.82 miles (40,008 km). So that means the Blackbird would do a flight around the world in 11 hours. Unfortunately it only had a range of 2,590 nm (4,800 km), so it would have to refuel at least 9 times. In a way, it's amazing that someone can build a plane that can carry enough fuel and still do the trip in less than 8x the time.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You should give it a try instead of just thinking about it. It's a short life and you only get one chance (Hindus excepted).
I've read stories from people on sailboats who did it and loved it, and from people who did it and hated it. email me in 3 years and I'll give you my opinion if it's Good or Bad but since I'm not on a boat my opinion wouldn't count.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
They spent all kinds of money to design and build a machine that would consume fuel for 80 hours and then be where it started from.
I propose that a more cost effective device. It would be made of baked clay. This rectangular object could be placed at any location. Not just on a runway. 80 hours later we could verify that it was it was still there.
They held up progress in aviation for almost 10 years in the US by making their plans secret and suing anybody who made planes. Their big patent fight was against Curtis Aircraft who invented ailerons, whereas the Wright's used wing-warping. During that time up till the early 20's, France took the lead in aviation, hence all the French sounding parts: fuselage, aileron, empenage, etc. Of course they contributed the most out of anyone in the old days but after the first few flyers there wasn't nearly as much innovation coming out of Wright Airplanes. The last truly succesful product they made, please correct me if I'm wrong, was the Wright Cyclone, a large radial engine used in WWII aircraft.
Even more imoportantly, how does one decide on the best "central location" for an around the world flight!
What if the guns are timed to fire between the propellor blades?.
Four Words: Out of Colombian Coffee
Uhm - does he have auto pilot on or anything during that time?
The site is dying on me at the moment, but wouldn't he lose focus during that time? (Search on google for "How long can the human body stay awake" leads to this SciAm article.)
Try not to let life get in the way of living.
Or maybe he just made a mistake?
people make mistakes, but seriously, it sticks out like a sore thumb, and how many 'mistakes' can one be allowed to make?
It was 1961 and some dude named Yuri Gagarin flew all the way around the world and he never needed refueling...
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
it was the only geek site work checking.
Oh, I'd bet a fair amount of money that work is when this site gets most of the hits.
Ba-dum dum *crash*
Karnal
Wasn't that done by Yuri Gagarin back in 1961? And he went around several times.
Okay, I'll grant that the vehicle wasn't very usable after the flight.
-- Alastair
My friend's Mom rode her bike from Colorado to Connecticut for her 60th birthday, just found out she went sky diving for her 65th. There's still time to be adventurous, I'm gonna be taking it easy for a few decades.
Call me ignorant, but isn't that a bit slow? Why not fly faster? Educate me on this, anyone?
Try not to let life get in the way of living.
The flight plan was adjusted once more later Monday after Algeria closed a portion of its airspace, mission control director Kevin Stass said. The change, he said, would slightly reduce the overall length of the flight and save some of the 18,000 pounds of fuel aboard the single-engine jet.
It can only mean that they were going out of their way to fly over Algeria in their initial plans, but that makes even less sense.
That was my line of thinking. Even after I almost died several times. Knowing people in their 20s and 30s getting cancer or dying from weird causes helped change my mind.
Then getting epilepsy from the last time I almost died really pushed me. I can't be killed, but I can be injured.
I might get hit by a bus this afternoon and I might live another 70 years.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
I mean any long-range plane can fly "around the world" at 89 degrees latitude, if it can get there. And these guys are not flying a great circle. So clearly there is some magic latitude that counts as going around the world, and some other that doesn't.
So how do you possibly decide what it is? Is 45 degrees enough? Above a certain latitude, weather and national politics might create an issue of course. They are getting down to 15 degrees in Hawai`i so it looks "real" but how do you quantify it?
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Saw the (slightly faded) pic of similarly-looking plane in one of our department more (way more) senior guy's office and today asked if this is the one which is going to fly. Nope, he said, THAT one was taken long time ago, and it was a non-solo flight, and on an internal combustion engine as well. This one is solo and with a jet engine.
;-) ).
(And yes, he told me how he went to the Desert to see this thing take off and it was so loaded with fuel that its wings were almost touching the runway, it lost a little wing-end stabilizer during take-off and damaged another one, and still was able to fly around the globe and at the end had enough fuel to fly to the east coast!
(then he went on to discussing different ways to take off heavy planes when you do not want to have positive lift on the runway, ours being one of the major airospace companies, after all, but we do electronics. I would share some insights if I'd still remember them...)
Paul B.
Not a lot of details there. What's so special about this plane that allows it to fly for 80 hours without refueling. What kind of engine etc
Not that I care all that much. Another billionaire trying to get into record books. I had a good laugh every time Richard Branson's baloon crashed, and I'll have a good laugh here too
Or is this mandatory only for passengers?
"to be the first solo non-stop flight around the world without refuelling." The keywords here, are SOLO, and what should have been included: jet-powered. Voyager, the last Round the World plane, had a pair of engines driving props. Now, why is jet-powered significant? Because jet technology has typically lagged behind in fuel economy.
The Soviet Union, for their long range TU-95 bomber (Codenamed by NATO as the BEAR) used four turboprop engines each driving a pair of counterrotating props. The reason for this, while the West was starting to use Jet bombers, was that even the best jets the Soviet Union could produce had not acheived the fuel economy to give them the rage that was needed. With turboprops, however, the range exceed estimates, and a passenger TU-95 variant was used by Aeroflot on a Soviet Union-Cuba route in the 60's.
Back to the present day... If Burt Rutan has designed a plane with the fuel capacity to feed a jet for a Round the World flight, then he is truly a genius. But one thing I noticed is that 295 MPH is slow for a jet aircraft. During WWII, the fastest Allied plane was about 450 MPH, mabye more in a dive. I'm curious to know if the reduction in speed is reaping a fuel econ. benifit. IANAAE (I am not an Aeronautical Engineer,) but I'd suppose this is like driving a car at 45 to save on gas, as opposed to 65. Any Aeronautical Engineers out there want to reply?
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
The jet engine is actually just a regular off the shelf engine.
I talked with the guys at K-state of Salina (the support team for it their, I have actually been withen 1 " of the thing) and they said the hard part is keeping the weight down while having it be strong enough to keep the wings from falling off.
They didn't fill it up completly till it was right at the start of the runway, and even then, they weighed it to make sure they didn't overfill it.
Wow. Really cool. So cool that I might read this "news item" twice. I hope they race with this guy to get around the world to see who first spots a dupe.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/01/02/mistaken.bomb ing/
Drugs are Great.
So this thing weighs 10 tons. 83% of that is fuel so 8300 kg. It has 15% extra fuel as reserve, so it will need an estimated 7000 kilograms. Fuel has a density of around .83 Kg/L so this is 8400 L of fuel. The circumference of the earth is 40,000 km leading to a fuel efficiency of 21 L/100 km.
Or... in miles per gallon it would be 26000 miles/2200 gallons = 12 miles per gallon.
Not bad at all for a 10 ton craft (initially) that flies.
In fact, it beats the hummer and many SUV's.
You hafta spray paint your national affiliation across the wings, fuselage, and tail of your plane first :)
The current favorites are:
A Dollar Sign.
An apple with a bite taken out of it.
A flying multicolored window whose color scheme vaguely reminds some of the prior logo before it went monochrome.
A fat lazy penguin wearing a flightsuit.
And a Bison.
I have no idea how you can stay awake that long! I recall Burt Rutan and his wife tried this a few years ago and there was some heat between them, probably set on by the lack of sleep. Judgement is sacraficed under those conditions.
Call me when it's attempted using a human-powered craft.
OT: I like puppies, and I like acid!
After all, I am strangely colored.
He flew around the world without refueling. Lots of cosmonauts and astronauts did it after him.
K-State Salina has a very good aeronautics school, and a large enough airstrip.
At 200-300 Km height there is still some gas left (although very rarefied). Check out the generalized version of the barometric equation which takes into account the variation of the gravitational field with altitude.
The flight plan largely involves following the jetstream, which means they are not flying directly around the equator.
In order to meet the FAI's definition of around the world, the flight must be at least as long as the tropic of capricorn.
therefore, they are intentionally adding lots of distance over the Pacific, in the form of a huge, wide turn.
You get to patent it.
Deal with it.
And you say the French did all the innvoation in that time, hence the French names? But then you say Curtiss Aircraft of Buffalo, NY invented the aileron. Is Buffalo in France now? I think you made a basic error here of some sort.
The GlobalFlyer is actually powered by a turbofan, not a jet. These engines use a jet engine to spin a fan which produces the majority of the thrust. Air entering the cowling is divided between entering a the compressor intake and (the majority) bypasses the compressor and is blown out by the fan. A minority percentage of the thrust actually comes from the combustion gases. Turbofans are what move commercial airliners. In a true jet powered craft, all the thrust comes from combustion gases.
if just merideans then go north till you hit a huge ice cube do donut land and call it a day.
Err... Main language turn on?
Here are the METARs...t tp://www.met.tamu.edu/class/METAR/quick-metar.ht ml
KSLN 010053Z 34011KT 10SM CLR 01/M10 A3007 RMK AO2 SLP193 T00061100
KSLN 282353Z 34019G25KT 10SM CLR 03/M12 A3004 RMK AO2 PK WND 35026/2305 SLP183 T00331117 10056 20033 53005
http://weather.cod.edu/notes/metar.html
h
Here was the TAF valid at takeoff...
KSLN 282320Z 010024 34009KT P6SM SKC
FM1200 VRB03KT P6SM SKC
FM1800 17006KT P6SM FEW150=
http://www.faa.gov/ats/mmvafss/METAR.htm
I hope the landing weather is just as good.
Mod Parent up, Informative!
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
I've heard that Boeing wants to demonstrate the extreme long range of the new 777-200 Long Range model by doing what could be the longest flight ever by a standard jet engine airliner.
Remember, the 777-200LR can fly over 9,000 nautical miles with a standard passenger load and a slightly-reduced cargo load with extra fuel tanks; imagine stripping down a 777-200LR so you can can get the weight equivalent of the cabin fittings and cargo load in extra fuel load. Pre-cool all that Jet A fuel and this modified 777-200LR could probably travel over 13,000 nautical miles easily, though a round-the-world non-stop flight is probably out of the question.
..not
Jet engines act as their own superchargers. So they can fly at very high altitudes. Piston engines need separate superchargers for this.
And, since jets can fly higher (and produce much more thrust) they can fly faster.
Well, this flight doesn't need to be particularly fast. So there is plenty of reason to question why the answer to the questions for this flight are different from those for the airline industry.
If you are going to use a jet, you'd want a ultra high bypass engine. This means that it both passes air through the regular jet combustion part and also pushes more air out hte back around the combustion area. That means it really acts like a turboprop.
Honestly, that engine looks too small to be a true UHP engine. But I guess it does well enough for this very light vehicle.
I know Rutan does very high tech stuff, but he sourced the engines for White Knight from surplus that was cheaply available. This plane probably also uses an engine that was "close enough" instead of purpose designed.
While I'm at it, I want to mention how silly this whole thing is. An autopilot could fly that plane around the entire world while Fossett sleeps. Technology has made this record pointless.
I say after Fossett flies around the world in this thing he gets out, they gas it up and send it off without a pilot to do another lap.
Anyone know if the "Mixed Feed" video stream will be available at any point in the flight prior to the landing? I watched the takeoff - faily uneventful due to the waning light - but I'd really like to peek in the cockpit during the flight. That feed seems to have been down since just after takeoff. The Mission Control Feed and Press Briefing Room are not all that terribly interesting.
the one that puzzles me more than how he sleeps or eats, is how does he shit?
why instead of someone designing a plane specifically for it someone didnt take something like the guppy or another plane with an enormous payload, add extra fuel tanks instead of passengers/cargo. could someone care to explain?
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
Yuri Gagarin was the first in April 12, 1961.
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
Can you say MetaAmphetamines boys & girls? I thought so.
On another track, Around the world in 80 days. Remember that? So, 100 years later and we only get 24 times faster? When you get a transporter story, let me know (call@me.com)
The Salina Airport was chosen for its central location
... Right.. so in a semi-sphere like our planet... how was this a CENTRAL location? ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glenn
For live coverage of the mission in progress, see http://www.saljournal.com/globalflyer/.
I wonder how much will be flown by auto pilot? Especially during the last legs of the trip.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
I do not understand, why they are flying completely different route than they planned? They should have been flying over Europe, but they go over Africa instead. What's up?
Its taken almost three centuries since the demonstration of flight [ by balloon ] for a person to solo the globe. Now powered flight may be soloed. Its not a trivial record.
the spaceshuttle? Doesn't it do the roundtrip thing without refueling also. I am sure that one person flies it at a time too (not including the nav or anyone). And it does this in much less than 80 hours. Or is the spaceshuttle not in the same category?
I think what you are missing is the huge number of things that all had to come together at one time in order to make the first airplane. The engines of the time had to make a huge step forward in terms of their power output to weight ratio. The Bernoulli principle had to be tested and proven on a large scale wing. The traditional propeller shape used in power boats had to be redesigned to work in the unfamiliar arena of air.
Work was going on in several places in the U.S., as well as in France. Curtiss Aircraft actually had a model ready to go before the Wright brothers, but when they launched it, it didn't fly.
The French claim they had the first flight because the Wright brothers only got the plane to go in a straight line. The French chose to define flight as the ability to take off, turn the aircraft in a 1km circle and land in the same spot, which they did in 1908.
Other notable French Aeronautical achievements:
1905 Captain F. Ferber of the French army introduces a stable, powered biplane.
1907 A man-carrying helicopter, built by Frenchman Paul Cornu, rises (November)
1909 Louis Blériot makes the first airplane flight across the English Channel (July)
1910 First successful seaplane flown by Henri Fabre
1912 First flight of an all-metal airplane, the French Tubavion
1912 First airplane flight at more than 160 km/hr (100 mph), by the French pilot J. Védrines (February)
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
if you fly your own plane (privately under part 91 rules) you can take just about anything you want. including guns.
IIRC, you are required to carry firearms if you fly over certain parts of Canada.
Take something more tangible like a car design. If you lumped destailed descriptions of all the blueprints for the individual components in a nicely bound document without any overall design schematic how hard would it be for anyone to get an overall picture of how the car would look and feel?
What if you asked your average customer to work out if they'd like the car based on these ideas?
This is very much like what you're asking business analysts and users to do if you provide a source code listing and nothing more. If I was in charge of a project, and that's what you handed me after I gave you business requirements, I'd seek to have you removed from the project.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"to be the first solo non-stop flight around the world without refuelling."
Wasn't that Yuri Gagarin?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.