GlobalFlyer Completes Record-Breaking Flight

ikewillis writes "Steve Fossett has successfully landed the GlobalFlyer in Kansas, completing the record-breaking flight and becoming the first person to successfully circle the earth in a nonstop solo flight. The journey of 37,000 kilometres has taken 67 hours, many of them fraught with anxiety over whether the custom-made GlobalFlyer aircraft had enough fuel for the trip. Fossett managed to touch down at 2:48 p.m. EST, to the delight of mission control staff, a small crowd and a marching band that had gathered at the airstrip to welcome him."

Comments

67 hours no?

[fembots]

The friendly article mentioned "The journey of 37,000 kilometres took 67 hours".

What is unknown is the amount of fuel left when the craft was landed, I'm sure I'm not the only one eager to find out.

Re:67 hours no?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if it was jsut an instrument error, evaporation, or whatever else.

Also, I'm interested in their fuel economy in the real world as compared to what they expected.

Re:67 hours no?

[ergo98]

What is unknown is the amount of fuel left when the craft was landed

One would have to presume that they calculated the necessary amount of fuel beforehand to achieve the lightest flight weight possible. It seems inconceivable that they really lost 2,600 lbs of fuel and still completed the journey fine.

I see three possibilities.

-The whole "loss of fuel" thing was a huge publicity stunt that worked wonderfully. Oooh, the anxiety!

-Their inflight measurements were wrong.

-They REALLY overfilled it, and had plenty to slop around.

Re:67 hours no?

[iminplaya]

You forgot to convert it to metric hours.

Re:67 hours no?

[tehshen]

I heard (on the TV, no source) that the flight completed with only "a thimbleful of fuel remaining". I guess he got lucky, just making it like that.

Re:67 hours no?

[LiquidCoooled]

The loss of fuel, time to complete, and fact he did finish faster than planned can all be explained by being carried along on a fortunate jet stream.

We have all experienced it on windy days driving to work. If the wind is with you, you drive faster easier, otherwise its a battle.

Re:67 hours no?

[silvwolf]

-The whole "loss of fuel" thing was a huge publicity stunt that worked wonderfully. Oooh, the anxiety!

Article Link

"When asked if the Mission Control team had overplayed the seriousness of the fuel shortage, Branson replied: "Incredibly, the thing is, in life truth is often stranger than fiction."

Branson said he had expected the flight would either be disastrous or boring but "everything that could have happened seems to have happened. There has been a lot of drama.""

(That was before the landing.)

Re:67 hours no?

[Richard_at_work]

Remember that at the last minute, they changed the flightplan to take a MASSIVE shortcut by cutting out the northern atlantic route and instead flying directly to Africa and across that way (due to preferential winds apparently) That would have saved a lot of fuel, which probably helped a lot.

Re:67 hours no?

[Fjornir]

Well, given that the loss of fuel was noticed, in part, due to a discepency between what the fuel flow meter reported and what the tanks were showing on the guages that's probably not the sole factor.

Re:67 hours no?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if it was jsut an instrument error, evaporation, or whatever else.

Or if it was just hype to add some drama to the flight and keep it at the top of the headlines. Wouldn't be the first time for an artificial crisis.

Re:67 hours no?

[pudding7]

How is the loss of fuel due to being carried along by a friendly jet stream?

Re:67 hours no?

[KUHurdler]

"or whatever else."

I guess my theory of a publicity stunt would fall in that category.

Re:67 hours no?

[lowrydr310]

I heard that if the pilot ran out of fuel, he would have been able to glide for the last 50 miles or so. 50 miles doesn't seem like much - especially when you're cruising at 50,000 feet in an extremely light aircraft (remember there's no more fuel - the full load of fuel probably weighed considerably more than the empty aircraft).

Re:67 hours no?

[friedmud]

I just read on the site that the plane could glide 200 miles... but they noted that was only for emergency use ;-)

200 miles is quite a ways.

Friedmud

Re:67 hours no?

[LiquidCoooled]

If his engines had to work harder, then he would have still run out of fuel.
It was just good fortune he get a lift from mother nature :)

Re:67 hours no?

[ehiris]

I wonder what changes they made to accommodate the loss of fuel if any. You might have noticed the chute deploying for slowing the plane down. That is something that shouldn't have been necessary. He planned of flying around over the crowd before landing.

This gets us one step closer to commercial space flight. This plane was designed by Burt Rutan who also designed SpaceShipOne.

P.S.: Google toolbar spell-checker rocks!

Re:67 hours no?

[ehiris]

Hopefully that flightplan change won't invalidate their record.

Re:67 hours no?

[mboverload]

How do you take a shortcut circling the globe? Last time I checked there's no holes going through the planet.

Re:67 hours no?

[sacherjj]

His cruise altitude was 45,000 feet. Roughly 8 miles. With an efficient aircraft (which this is) you should have a glide ratio better than 30. So he should be able to glide 30 * 8 or 240 miles. The 200 miles figure seems much more likely than the 50 miles.

Re:67 hours no?

[InfiniteWisdom]

- They had 15% extra fuel compared to what they estimated they needed. 2600 is 14.3% of 18100

- They could have had more favorable tailwinds than anticipated

- They could have reached the favorable-enough tailwinds and a substantially lower altitude than initially predicted, allowing them to spend less fuel climbing

Re:67 hours no?

[Enigma_Man]

The chute _was_ necessary to land properly, the info on the Scaled Composites site specifically mentions that. The plane had such a good glide-to-drop-ratio (I forget the actual term for that) that it made it extremely difficult to land. You couldn't get the plane to drop fast enough to land in any sort of reasonable runway, it would just skim over the ground.

-Jesse

Re:67 hours no?

[lowrydr310]

#@$&* CNN... what a great source of misinformation!

Re:67 hours no?

[mrdaveb]

Yes, they should take the shortest route around the world - just fly in a tight circle around the north or south pole!

Oh, that's cheating? OK, make sure the route takes in both hemispheres - start just south of the equator, head straight for the north pole, fly round it and back again. I'd be curious to know what the actual requirements are for "around the world".

Re:67 hours no?

[Hank the Lion]

Compared to the total distance, 200 miles is less than 1 percent. Harly 'quite a ways'...

Re:67 hours no?

[mmkkbb]

the full load of fuel probably weighed considerably more than the empty aircraft

The fully-loaded fuel tank was around 85% the plane's weight, IIRC, so you are correct.

Re:67 hours no?

[ArsonSmith]

Instead of having a safer flight plan that went like /\/\/\/\/\/\/\
between the diffrent contents that he could safly land at he change the flight corse to
______________

in order to have the shortest distance.

Re:67 hours no?

[southpolesammy]

TFA states that the plane left with 18,000 pounds of fuel, potentially lost 2,600 pounds, and uses 102 pounds/hour. With 15,400 pounds in the tank, the plane should have been able to fly for almost 151 hours. It took 67 hours to circumnavigate.

Yep, sounds like a hell of a PR stunt.

Re:67 hours no?

[SidV]

35,000 Kilometers and crossing the equator twice.

Re:67 hours no?

[ergo98]

Yep, sounds like a hell of a PR stunt.

Perhaps you missed the news, but the ominous warnings were that the flight would have to be abandoned because of the loss, and they just didn't know how it was going to turn out. Furthermore, apparently it landed on fumes.

In other words your indignant post is a load of shit.

Re:67 hours no?

[Richard_at_work]

The actual requirements are '36,787.559-kilometer minimum distance required for the arbiter of world aviation records, the Paris-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale, to recognize the feat.' There you go.

Re:67 hours no?

[Ced_Ex]

While his feat is impressive, I would like to see him repeat it going the other way around. That way they can see how effective the flight would be against the jet stream, similar to most commercial aircraft would have to go through flying East to West.

Re:67 hours no?

[southpolesammy]

Depends on which way you go. IIRC, around the equator is farther than around the poles.

Re:67 hours no?

[ReverendLoki]

Personally, at this point, I'd like to see someone circumnavigate the Earth in a non-selfpropelled, heavier-than-air craft (in short, sailplane). Is this even plausible?

Re:67 hours no?

[ReverendLoki]

Even in the worst case scenario, the plane could remain aloft for another 8 miles then.

Oh, wait, you meant a distance measured *horizontally* - er, nevermind.

Re:67 hours no?

[Evil Poot Cat]

I think the mission was looking really thin, until he found that fuel powerup over the Pacific. Then it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.

Re:67 hours no?

[espek]

It would be near impossible to do this in a sailplane, mostly because you can only fly sailplanes during the day. At night there are no thermals to keep you afloat. that's why you need some sort of self-contained power source (batteries, or fuel). And to the gentleman from a prior post that does not seem to be impressed by this _amazing_ feat, I pity you.

Re:67 hours no?

[tompaulco]

a 20:1 glide ratio (assuming 50,000 feet) is much higher than any other jet I am aware of(typically 10:1 or less), and is higher than even most small planes (typically 14:1). Some gliders have 30:1 or higher glide ratios.
I doubt that the global flyer has a 20:1 glide ratio.

Re:67 hours no?

[Em Adespoton]

So what someone really needs to do is make a sailplane that can do it in a time between 24 and 36 hours... then the sun can be up for the entire flight.

Something tells me this won't be happening anytime soon.

Re:67 hours no?

[CohibaVancouver]

Personally, at this point, I'd like to see someone circumnavigate the Earth in a non-selfpropelled, heavier-than-air craft (in short, sailplane). Is this even plausible?

http://tinyurl.com/3qs7j

Re:67 hours no?

[prashantp76]

I'll take option 1:

I'm a bit synical about this endavour.

First I heard there was a problem with their GPS - but it came back online - surely they have at least two other backups! - They could have borrowed my handheld GPS.

Then there was the aforementioned fuel problem. The aircraft is nothing much more than a flying fuel tank with a jet engine fitted.

Still a good achievement, but not as great as their previous attempts (e.g. hot air balloon) which I think required more skill to achieve.

Re:67 hours no?

[idontgno]

Yes. Boost the sailplane to an altitude of 250 km and a Earth-relative velocity of 8 km/sec and the sailplane circumnavigates the Earth with NO further propulsion. FOREVER.

I don't know why you'd want to orbit your sailplane, though....

Re:67 hours no?

[friedmud]

Are you questioning my assertion?

http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/News/Thur sday_8_am_Update.jsp

Project Director Paul Moore said that Steve is now burning up about 102 lbs of fuel per hour and that he had the ability to glide nearly 200 miles, "but only in an emergency."

?

Or are you just questioning whether or not that is possible?

Friedmud

Re:67 hours no?

[non-poster]

So what someone really needs to do is make a sailplane that can do it in a time between 24 and 36 hours... then the sun can be up for the entire flight.

This would obviously require flying westward... Would there be any contention with the jet stream (mentioned above) that would make this impossible?

Re:67 hours no?

[jsight]

I doubt that the global flyer has a 20:1 glide ratio.

Me too.... I'm pretty sure it's been quoted at closer to 37:1.

Re:67 hours no?

[Waffle Iron]

Some gliders have 30:1 or higher glide ratios. I doubt that the global flyer has a 20:1 glide ratio.

Since the global flyer looks just like a glider with a jet engine bolted on, I wouldn't doubt it all that much.

Re:67 hours no?

[espek]

I know a lot about airplanes, but not about sailplanes or high alititude flight. As I wrote that last post, I also realized there would be many obstacles in an around the world flight on a sailplane.

The whole night and day thing is problem. No thermals at night, or over cloudy terrain.

The other is that if you're flying a sailplane and your not in a thermal, you're dropping. No thermal, no lift. You only glide, but if you're gliding that means you're dropping.

Oceans (as far as I'm know) don't create thermals. So that's another hurdle.

The other thing is that thermals only reach so high. So you would never get decent altitude. He was at 44k because there are advantages to flighing that high. You get a help from the jet stream, and the air is thinner so it takes less fuel to push through it.

Yeah, it's not impossible. But very challenging. The only alternative would be to use rechargable solar cells on wings to power electric motors, but even that technology is inefficient. And then it would technically become a powered aircraft, so we've strayed away from the sailplane model.

Re:67 hours no?

[southpolesammy]

Ok, I'll grant you that. So let's do the math in reverse.

Let's assume you're right and he landed with no fuel. Let's also assume that TFA is correct that the average cruising burn rate (not takeoff, nor landing) is 102 lbs/hr, and that according to the Mission Log, he started cruising about 12.5 hours into the flight. That means he cruised for 54.5 hours and therefore should have spent about 5559 pounds of fuel in that time.

Let's also assume that he did have a maximum of 15,400 pounds of fuel for the whole trip. Minus the 5559 spent cruising, that means he spent 9,841 pounds of fuel over 12.5 hours getting up to altitude, for a burn rate of about 787 lbs/hr. So, yes, it's many times higher, so you could be correct about that.

The odd part to me is that it took 12.5 hours to get to 45,000 feet. At an average of 60 ft/minute, this is nearly a level ascent, although I will assume that the initial ascent following takeoff was at a much faster rate than the overall ascent. It just seems awfully slow to me to get to that height. I'm also guesstimating that the plane is at least 2x as heavy at takeoff than at cruising speed due to the fuel load, but the burn rate is almost 8x as expensive. This seems terribly non-linear for what is essentially an almost level ascent, even with the additional weight of the fuel. Of course, I'm not an aeronautical engineer, but even so, it just seems inefficient to me overall.

Either that, or the ascent burn was not that much and there was plenty of fuel left in the tank (or there was a much greater leak/lossage than being reported).

Re:67 hours no?

[southpolesammy]

It's not my number -- came from CNN's article.

Re:67 hours no?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

There are also very few thermal sources over water, and at the speed of even the highest performance sailplanes it would take about a month.

Re:67 hours no?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

It can also be explained by a bored scriptwriter, and a Hollywood soundstage.

Re:67 hours no?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Since the global flyer looks just like a glider with a jet engine bolted on...

Basically what Lockheed did with the U-2, iirc. Basically an F104 with very long wings. Saw one tethered to the apron at Aames back in the 70's. There was a light northerly breeze, and I saw daylight under the main gear wheels. Saw it take off later, very vertical takeoff. Out of sight before it cleared the runway, but you could bloody well still hear it.

Yes, jet-powered gliders have been with us for a while. But I'm sure Lockheed's Kelly Johnson would have appreciated Mr. Rutan's achievements.

Re:67 hours no?

[georgewilliamherbert]

I doubt that the global flyer has a 20:1 glide ratio.

From: The Global Flyer aircraft description at virginatlanticglobalflyer.com we have the following statistics:

Some facts and figures:
- Wing Span: 114ft
- Wing Area: 400ft squared
- Length: 44.1ft
- Height: 13.3ft
- Gross Weight: 22,000 lbs
- Empty Weight: 3,350 lbs

That's an aspect ratio of 32.5, wing loading when the fuel runs out (assuming 200 lb pilot+gear) of only 8.875 lbs/ft^2. Induced drag will be trivial and you're only fighting wetted area drag.

The best glider in the world? No. A darn good one? Oh, yeah.

Re:67 hours no?

[Ced_Ex]

I need no pity. I am impressed with what they have accomplished, having done what no other person has ever tried. Truly pioneers. However, that said, I would like to know how much of their feat can be attributed to taking advantage of the jet stream? Aren't you at all a bit curious? I would think that there would have been a portion of flight completed just from gliding.

I'm just a cynical bastard like a lot of these posters here on Slashdot, and I just like to question everything, no matter how a reader may perceive it.

Re:67 hours no?

[tylernt]

Correct:

1. The earth's diameter is slightly larger at the equator than at the poles.

2. The diameter of the earth at the equator is 7,927 miles.

3. The diameter at the poles is 7,900 miles.

Hideous source website: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Ov9THqSyz04J:ww w.enter.net/~wxdata/earth1.htm+earth+diameter+equa tor+poles&hl=en&client=firefox-a

Re:67 hours no?

[Don Sample]

I don't think that there's a requirement to cross the equator. The guys who hold the speed record for circling the world in a helicopter never left the northern hemisphere. They started in England, hopped across the Atlantic using Iceland and Greenland for refuelling stops, zigzagged across North America to build up the necessary distance to have the record recognized, then hopped from Alaska to Siberia, and went pretty much straight across Asia and Europe to get back to England.

Re:67 hours no?

[SidV]

Depends on who your trying to get to recognize the record.

FAI requires you to cross all lines of longitude, and cover a distance equal to the tropic of Cancer.

With that I could do it with snowmobile at the North Pole so long as I had a large enough tanker to fuel me up.

Which is why many put in the Cross the equator twice business. Makes it a more realistic circumnavigation.

Baloonists are the ones that screwed up the equator requirements because they couldn't fly a baloon down and cross the equator due to the prevailing winds, others took advantage of that, your helicopter guys in point.

I always wanted to do a circumnavigation using a Hummer or Land Rover or such (with them footing the bill) by driving north and down into Siberia, and then across Europe, then find a land bridge into Africa. So could do an equator crossing in South America, and in Africa. Then head bact to North America through Scandinavia.

Land Rovver did it, they used ferries though, I think that's cheating.

hmmmmm Looks like someone else is doing it for charity. http://www.drivearoundtheworld.com/route/index.htm l

Re:67 hours no?

[espek]

The jet stream is part of the fligtht. It's part of the environment and part of the risk. That wind up there is moving pretty damn fast. No doubt about it. And you stake your path along that river of wind, it will help.

Now, the gamble is the following: Without the jetstream's help, we're fucked. So we better read the jetstream right. Because if we read that jetstream right, we might just do the impossible.

If you screw up in your weather predicting capabilities, you're in trouble. And screwing up while flying in the middle of the ocean or mountain range can mean your death. Or anywhere else for that matter since that airplane can only land at airports with very long run ways. So you better be right about that jet stream.

Being able to read the jetstream properly is also part of the challenge in a flight of this nature. The weather guy is as important as the engineer, as the programmer, as the aerodynamist (brilliant guy!), and all the rest of the team.

Everybody has to be right. Or some poor bastard dies, in this case he's a rich poor bastard. But really, who cares how much money the guy makes? The fact of the matter the guy had the balls to get in an airplane that "might" get him there all the way there without failing. There is not a whole lot of room for error.

This is not a flight about distance, or records. Or the technical aspects of time and distance. It's a flight about people setting goals for themselves that are far greater than the goals people like you and me set.

These guys go out there and do things that nobody else has even ATTEMPTED before. And today, they won. And now somebody has done something, nobody else had been able to achieve before.

Who the fuck cares about how much the jetstream helped or didn't help? That's not the point of the flight. The point of the flight was to break the boundries of human imagination.

But this will all go for naught, because it's all lost on you. And how can I blame you, everybody likes to bust a quarterback around the donut table on a Monday morning.

Re:67 hours no?

[irhtfp]

Yes, and this distance just happens to be the circumference of the earth at the tropic of cancer (capricorn, whatever). They were also proscribed from entering airspace above 66.7 deg latitude.

Re:67 hours no?

[kylemonger]

Who the fuck cares about how much the jetstream helped or didn't help? That's not the point of the flight. The point of the flight was to break the boundries of human imagination.

Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager's feat nearly twenty years ago was astonishing. Fossett's feat by comparison just added in sleep deprivation. Sorry, but staying up for days on end is something most people here on slashdot are very familiar with. So Fossett's feat is not so impressive, particularly if there were drugs involved.

Re:67 hours no?

[WhiteDragon]

Yes, it was pretty neat to watch the landing, because it was gliding so much that even with the chute, it would get close to the runway, and ground effect would pick it up a few feet.

Re:67 hours no?

[jandrese]

It uess 102 pounds/hour when cruising. It takes a lot more fuel to get up to cruising altitude.

Congrats

[Rei]

My congrats to the team. It's nice to see that the lack of testing at full fuel didn't do the mission in, and that they were able to take a position in the record books. :)

Re:Congrats

[tehshen]

They did more than take a position in the record books - they made a new record altogether. This sort of thing doesn't happen that often anymore, so it's nice to see someone trying something new as opposed to doing something old better. Congratulation!

Well, con-frickin-gratulations!

[rearl]

Really!

Blah

[Neil Blender]

The only difference between Steve Fosset and myself is millions upon millions of dollars. People like him just buy records.

Re:Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

The only difference between Steve Fosset and myself is millions upon millions of dollars.

Yeah, that and talent, vision, courage, ability, funding, support, drive, goals, and...well...a record.

But don't worry, trolling on /. is just as honorable.

Re:Blah

[raider_red]

And people like you just sit around and bitch about it.

Get off your butt and do something creative or new. Then maybe you'll be able to buy a couple.

Re:Blah

[Otter]

As teams around the world stuggle to find cures and treatments for all manmer of nasty ailments, rest assured they'll be giving a big-up to Fosset's "ability" and "drive"...

Hey, that's what I'm doing right now (err, to the degree that posting on Slashdot and trying break through the firewall to reach Live365 is "struggling"). Of course, as soon as we find something, the Slashbots will be insisting that we shouldn't get a patent for it because it's so obvious they could have come up with it in an hour and how can we be so greedy as to not spend hundreds of millions of dollars on clinical trials without expecting to make any of it back?

Hey, I'm glad you guys think I'm good for something. If only as a club with which to bash Steve Fossett.

Re:Blah

[dwlovell]

Time is worth more than money. The fact that he spent his own personal time and money to make this happen is a testament to the courage and vision and talent.

When Universities spend government grant money to do stuff like this, people fall all over themselves to congratulate them. Some guy spends his own money and years of his life to do the same, and suddenly he is some "rich fuck" in your eyes.

It is obvious that your problem is that you are insecure about your own lack of funds and this is preventing you from congratulating someone who deserves accolades for their hard work. This wasn't some fly-by-night (no pun intended) attempt. This guy has been trying for many years with multiple prototypes and failed attempts. He didn't give up, regardless of how expensive it was.

Get over the fact that you are not rich and see the value that his research brings to the world. (the same value you would see if this was a government funded research project).

-David

Re:Blah

[Rude Turnip]

The rest of us just download them with BitTorrent.

Re:Blah

[databyss]

"Plane design? Nope - sorry, it's a disguarded (due to being ponitless comercially) 15 year old design (just he was the first to come up with the cash to build it)
Faster speeds? Nope - it flies comparitively slowly in relation to virtually every other aircraft on the planet. Most 1960's helicopters travel faster."

The military has great interest in a plane the can fly for a long time very slowly.

UAV's I believe.

Although I doubt that has much commercial potential... it's still useful to some.

Re:Blah

[QuantumG]

Sure. Together the crust and upper mantle are called the lithosphere and they extend about 80 km deep. Below that is the asthenosphere, which is actually a flowing liquid, so I guess he wouldn't be doing much digging.

Re:Blah

[llefler]

I don't know. At 60, staying awake for 67 hours straight might be some kind of record. I wouldn't want to do it, and I'm not near that old.

Re:Blah

[d474]

Exactly, the guy sat on his "recliner like" chair for 67 hours and took catnaps. He drank sports drinks and milkshakes. Geeeezus, sounds like a typical 3 day weekend in these parts, only instead of "flying" a plane, I'm "controlling" the TV!

Correction

[Zebbie]

The post says that the flight took "more than 80 hours," but the first link states the flight took 67 hours.

Also FYI (37,000 km) / (67 hours) = 343.145285 mph ... pretty darn fast considering they were expecting an average of 285mph.

Re:Correction

[Fbelch]

There was a great amount of tail wind, that helped him fly faster.

Re:Correction

[LiquidCoooled]

That was probably caused when he crapped himself upon realising most of the fuel was missing.

Re:Correction

[btSeaPig]

I didn't rtfa, but which direction was he flying? Doesn't 37000 km total distance assume the earth is standing still?

Re:Correction

[tehshen]

I highly doubt he managed to escape the atmosphere; he still had his momentum from the Earth moving him. When you jump, you aren't suddenly free from the Earth and fly off somewhere, do you?

Re:Correction

[Moofie]

The atmosphere is not stationary with respect to space.

Of course, space is not stationary with respect to space, so your question becomes arbitrarily complicated.

I'd imagine the ground track was on the order of 37000 km. I'm pretty sure the airspeed*time measurement would be quite different, since he had a very favorable jet stream.

Re:Correction

[geoffspear]

Um, no. No more so than if I say I'm not moving right now I'm "assuming" the Earth is standing still. I'm talking about a frame of reference, which is understood to every single person on the Earth except you.

Do you claim that your trip to work this morning involved moving 30,000 miles?

Re:Correction

[ari_j]

Regarding the speed, are you sure they expected 285mph or was it 285 knots? Also, was that expected airspeed or ground speed? FWIW, 285kts = 328mph, and even if they expected 285mph, ground speed is higher than indicated airspeed at altitude (although I don't know how high they were flying, I remember reading it was fairly high up).

So what all did he get to fly over on this trip?

Re:Correction

[Aeiri]

That was probably caused when he crapped himself upon realising most of the fuel was missing.

Which also decreased the overall weight.

Re:Correction

[arodland]

No, because the stuff that airplanes fly in (the atmosphere) also rotates with the earth. If it didn't, there would be easterly winds everywhere, ranging from zero at the poles, to over 1600km/h at the equator. But since it ain't so, you can compute the whole thing with reference to the earth, and rotation doesn't matter.

Re:Correction

[thopkins]

Only if he could eject the crap from the plane, otherwise the crap-weight is still there.

Re:Correction

[KUHurdler]

"Do you claim that your trip to work this morning involved moving 30,000 miles?"

Only on my taxes.

Re:Correction

[NardofDoom]

That's airspeed. Using the jet streams I'm sure he went much faster.

Re:Correction

[epe]

no winds ni Quito, Ecuador right now. maybe the earth stopped moving? Shait!

Re:Correction

[Aeiri]

Well, they had a fuel leak, right?

Just shove it through there.

Re:Correction

[dlelash]

The 80 hour figure includes the time he spent waiting on the runway for clearance to take off.

Can I just be the first to say ...

[B3ryllium]

Who gives a flying F***!!!? ;-)

Re:Can I just be the first to say ...

[ackthpt]

Whom indeed? He was solo, so clearly it'll require the first couple to fly around the world or an contortionist hermaphrodite. But that's not exactly family hour stuff.

Re:Can I just be the first to say ...

[Adam.Steinbaugh]

It was a solo flight, so apparantely Mr. Fossett DOESN'T give a flying fuck.

Re:Can I just be the first to say ...

[rbarreira]

You, exactly...

Re:Can I just be the first to say ...

[databyss]

I intend to book me a room on the first space hotel with my woman and be the first couple to have space-sex.

Imagine the possibilities!

Congratulations to Scaled Composites & Steve F

[corngrower]

Congratulations to Fosset and the folks at Scaled Composites!. I'll bet he's had enough flying for awhile and he's probably wanting to take a shower and freshen up some right away.

I'm wondering how much fuel was left when he landed, given that problem with the missing 2600 lb of fuel. The journey took about 68 hours by my calculations, which was considerably below the initial estimate of 80 hours.

nbc news had this story http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7075972/

Ya think he might want to take a ship back to the U.K.? He's probably not going to want a milkshake for a few days either.

Sad, isn't it?

[ackthpt]

a small crowd and a marching band that had gathered at the airstrip to welcome him."

A guy flies all around the world, non-stop, solo in a jet aircraft and that's his reception. He should have landed in France, they knew how to welcome Lindy.

The first person to fly, solo, nonstop around the moon and back will probably be greeted by a kid with a kazoo.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[entrager]

The first person to fly, solo, nonstop around the moon and back will probably be greeted by a kid with a kazoo.

No, they will be greeted by Ashlee Simpson.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Coffee Warlord]

He landed in Kansas. That was the entire population of the state that came out. :)

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Well, he decided to land in freakin' Kansas. They don't have many people out there, feewer people who give a rat's ass.

If he would have landed in Chicago, NYC, or any number of other places, he would have had a huge crowd.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[dustinbarbour]

Dude.. We've been to the moon and have sent probes outside of our paltry little solar system. I'd say his reception was about right. The Frenchies only welcoemd Lindbergh as they did because he was the first to go solo across the Atlantic, a MAJOR feat at the time. Going around the world on one tank of gas isn't that incredible when compared to other recent achievements such as SpaceShip One and our Martian rovers.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Cyclometh]

He'd been up for 3 days straight, not moving, in a small chair stuck in a 7-foot cockpit.

The last thing I'd want at that point would be a gala reception. Gimme a couple days' sleep, a shower, and some food- THEN it'll be time to party.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[OzPeter]

Yeah .. especially as the Space Shuttle goes around the world on one tank of gas .. just happens to be a bloody big tank.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[garcia]

I don't know which is worse. A plastic piece of shit that sounds like a dying honey bee or a figure that will end up looking like a piece of plastic (after years of botox injections and surgery) that doesn't make any sound while appearing to.

Me? I think I'd pick the little shit w/the kazoo. At least he was trying.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[tehshen]

Freakin' Kansas has lots of unpopulated areas where it's easy to land a plane on without hitting anything. If he landed anywhere else, there could have been accidents - he hadn't slept for 67 hours, his landing would've been a little rusty.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[qwijibo]

I see no conflict here. Ashlee Simpson could be that kid with a kazoo.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[ch-chuck]

Really - Howard Hughes got Honored by the president, all the hollywood babes he wanted and a ticker tape parade:

The following year, 1938, he set an around-the-world record of 3 days, 19 hours and 17 minutes; in the process he cut Charles Lindbergh's New York-to-Paris record in half. (Radio equipment developed by Hughes Aircraft engineers for this flight would later serve as an entry into the electronics field.) Upon his return, Hughes was given a ticker tape parade down Broadway in New York City. He was at the height of his popularity.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[EvanED]

"He didn't have the option of cutting his trip short and landing in Hawaii if he ran out of gas."

OTOH, I think the California to Hawaii hop is longer than Lindberg's flight.

Sure, Lindburg had much bigger balls than this guy, but you can't just say "oh, he coulda landed".

(Actually, it sounds like it's not so much he lost a ton of fuel as the instruments were underreporting what he had. Just my reading of what happened. Or else it was a publicity stunt.)

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Naikrovek]

yeah its sad. they should have greeted him with a port-a-potty on the runway.

i'm serious.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Leroy_Brown242]

I hadn't taken into account the lack of sleep on landing. I'm sure adrenalin was going pretty well when he saw the runway. But even with that, fatigue would have been wicked.

As for the crap to run into, that's a good point as well.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[southpolesammy]

However, 600,000 prairie dogs looked upwards today and went, "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[sharkey]

He should have landed in France, they knew how to welcome Lindy.

No, he should have taken Bobo with him. The crowd wasn't there just for Lindy, you know.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[mph]

Yeah, out here in California, it's all skyscrapers. We certainly don't have anywhere he could have landed safely.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[richyoung]

Well, he decided to land in freakin' Kansas. They don't have many people out there, feewer people who give a rat's ass.

Not entirely fair - there is a lot of empty space and relatively low population there, but Kansas also has an extremely active civil aviation crowd. Flying's a big deal in Kansas.

Probably because it beats driving in Kansas, come to think of it. ;^)

OTOH, the state is becoming famous for their ongoing support of creationist "science" in schools, so I sorta regret defending them.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Then I went up to a thug gangster, and was like "Yo motherfuck, WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[mrdaveb]

Going around the world on one tank of gas isn't that incredible when compared to other recent achievements such as SpaceShip One and our Martian rovers.

Very true. That new airbus A380 is supposed to get half way round the world in good time without refueling - and that's a fricking jumbo jet with 500+ people on board!

OK, so it's tough doing it all without a co-pilot and a good nights sleep. Congrats.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[white1827]

It is encouraging to me actually. You see, this nonstop solo flight isn't useful. To anyone. Ever. Flying accross the atlantic was a major feat because it was something people wanted to be able to do. No one ever wants to fly out of kansas ONLY TO RETURN 60 HOURS LATER EXCEPTIONALLY TIRED. 50 years from now, no one will be loading up cargo and passenger planes and flying around the world without refueling.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[transient]

Flying's a big deal in Kansas

Yep. It's no coincidence that Cessna's headquarters is in Wichita.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[SidV]

Come to think of it.

67 hours in a cramped airplane, only to land at his starting point....

Sounds like a couple of commercial aviation flights I've been on. At least that's what it seems like.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[jonbryce]

California wasn't chosen because in the event that he did have to land early, he could land in California rather than the Pacific Ocean.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[southpolesammy]

I'm confused -- which one of your comparisons was supposed to be Ashlee?

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[tweedlebait]

Boeing, Learjet, Cesna/Raytheon, YingLing, and many smaller aircraft manufacturers are not far away in Wichita and I expect there was a lot of excitement.

A total guess on my part is the common weather pattern east of the rockies might have something to do with it.

a bit of flight history in KS:
http://www.wingsoverkansas.com/history/article.asp ?id=93

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[LWATCDR]

Cessna and Beechcraft are traditionally from Kansas. Not to mention that Boeing has a factory there as well.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[mph]

California wasn't chosen because in the event that he did have to land early, he could land in California rather than the Pacific Ocean.

Huh. I guess I took "catamaran-style aircraft" the wrong way.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[GweeDo]

He landed in Salina, KS because of the airport that is there. It used to be a military airport so it has a crazy long run way for the old cargo planes. This custom crafted needed a long runway to hit the speed for take off due to the large about of initial fuel. Also, there were many interested people there. KSU has a good size aviation school right there and it was a great oppurtunity for those students to see history being made. So, before you assume that Kansas is full of idiots that don't care...do some research.

(This note coming from an employee of a world reknown furniture company that is based in a town of 2200 people in Western Kansas).

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[drinkypoo]

Maybe they had a tuba present.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[soliptic]

I don't know which is worse. A plastic piece of shit that sounds like a dying honey bee

I read this much and fell about laughing, wondering what brilliant phrase you were going to use to describe the kazoo.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Holi]

No it doesn't, it goes up to space on one tank of gas, then it just falls around the earth on empty.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[Culture]

Of course, most of the good people of kansas realize that just at evolution is a farce, so is the idea of flying around the world. I mean, you would fall off the edge of the world if you tried to "fly around it." Get real!

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[kryocore]

Well, it could go around the world infinant times so long as there was enough oxygen... just orbit the earth...

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[DerekLyons]

The Frenchies only welcoemd Lindbergh as they did because he was the first to go solo across the Atlantic, a MAJOR feat at the time.

Nope. Lindbergh was about the 9th or 10th person to fly solo across the Atlantic. He was however the first to fly non-stop from New York to Paris..

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[d474]

"So, before you assume that Kansas is full of idiots that don't care...do some research..."

Well, I did my research. Hate to say it, but I'm not that impressed with Kansas.

Re:Sad, isn't it?

[joelb1]

I HATE Salina. (I'm from there) But in Salina's defense, it's maybe 50K people on a busy day, and most of the people would be at work when he landed. I do understand there were like 30K people there to see him off. Over half the town. not bad really..... sorry, had to say it.... let the dorothy and toto jokes begin.... (GRIN) joelb

A Great American Hero

[yoey]

Look at what's happened to me,
I can't believe it myself.
Suddenly I'm up on top of the world,
It should've been somebody else.

Believe it or not,
I'm walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free eee eee.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it's just me.

Re:A Great American Hero

[Monsieur Canard]

Believe it or not
George isn't at home...

Easy to go faster than that

[RedVortex]

Why didn't he just took off and re-landed right away, it would've been much faster than going around the world just to land at the same spot... DUH !!! Scientists, always missing the obvious... RedVortex

Re:Easy to go faster than that

[TopShelf]

File this under Strange But True, but I wonder if that happened here where I work.

We have a warehouse that supports two different segments of our business, and each has it's own computer system. There was a one-time case where material from one side was needed to fulfill an order for the other, so an urgent order was entered in the first system, with the same warehouse as supplier and customer.

Sure enough, someone wasn't watching when this hit the shipping area, and this package went out the door for Next Day Air delivery... to the same address. We do wonder if the box at least got to go for a joy ride before it arrived back on our doorstep the next day...

Salina, Kansas

[thedogcow]

Why Salina, Kansas? I dunno. Maybe for the open space just in case fuel was running short.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[Jarnis]

VERY long runway.

And that's where he started (because of the very long runway that was needed for takeoff).

And by the record rules, you have to start and land from the same airfield.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[redmerlin]

They choose Salina becuase they needed a very long runway for takeoff; it's a 12,000 foot runway that they used to train B52 bomber's during WW2.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[jthayden]

Originally he was going to take off and land in Calafornia, but they changed it so that he would have a larger portion of the continent to land in if he ran out of fuel. They also didn't take off from the east coast beacause they wanted a place to land if something went wrong during the initial asscent to flying altitude. According to something I read, that was the most difficult part of the flight.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[faqmaster]

The airstrip at Salinas is one of the nation's longest, at 12,300 ft (3.7 km !). (It used to house B-52s and ICBMs.) The long runway was nessecary for the plane to get up to speed for take off.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[geoffspear]

How informative. It's unfortunate the war ended 9 years before a B52 ever flew, or that training would have been a lot more valuable.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[zogger]

samll picky point. No B-52's in WW2. Those are whopper huge jets. B- 17s or 24's maybe. B-52s came much later, cold war years, got used in Nam a lot, etc. They still use them actually even though most of them are pretty old, they turned out to be a decent over all strong and useful design.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[thopkins]

You can train a bomber? ;)
I think you mean bomber pilots.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[TheUglyAmerican]

That is quite a runway. I flew there as a student pilot in a Cessna 172 a long time ago. As I was taxing back (a long taxi) for takeoff the ground controller said things like "you can take off from taxiway Bravo and have 10,900 feet or taxiway Delta and have 8,500 feet", etc. I wanted to tell him with the crosswinds they had that day I could have taken off across the runway. It is 500 ft wide!

Re:Salina, Kansas

[BeerCat]

But were you ever cleared to have two aircraft landing on the same runway at the same time (and not in formation, either)?

Machrihanish airfield, in Scotland, has a 10,000+ ft runway. I was cleared to land (based on the "normal" threshold), while one of my colleagues, who was practising precision landings, was cleared to land using the control tower (about two thirds of the way up) as a touch down point

Re:Salina, Kansas

[puzzled]

If it was world war II it was probably the B29, B52 dates from the mid 1950s.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[ssundberg]

Wichita, KS? That's where Boeing built a huge factory to build B-29s during WWII. After the war, it did become the factory from which was produced the B-47 and B-52 but, as others have pointed, not until ca. 1947. The extra runway length was probably added then.

Re:Salina, Kansas

[Unbeliever]

I haven't actually flown to EAA's Airventure at OshKosh myself, but don't they do that during the Expo week? I.e. "Aircraft A, Cleared to land Runway 2-7 on the blue dot, Aircraft B, Cleared to land Runway 2-7 on the Red dot, Aircraft C, Cleared to land Runway 2-7 on the Green Dot."

Ah, yes. Here it is, The Wittman NOTAM, page 10. Except I got the colors wrong, its White, Green, and Orange.

http://www.airventure.org/2004/flying/notam_2004 .p df

--Carlos V.

yeah, but

[FirstNoel]

it will be the best kazoo money can buy...

People like this

[HeetMyser]

I've always wondered what makes them tick. Are they just like me, only with a little more (or less) of some chemical or another? --- And I'm not talking alcohol or LSD here, either. So, what's next for this guy? Ride a space elevator? Go to Mars? Move to the moon?

Re:People like this

[Leroy_Brown242]

1. Money
2. Time
3. Sence of adventure

If you had near inexaustable funds, all the time in the world, and the desire to head out into the world and do crazy record breaking stuff, you'd be the headliner for most the news in the world right this minute.

Re:People like this

[SoundGuyNoise]

IIRC from an article I read years ago, people who take part in extreme sports and the like, actually have lower than normal adrenaline levels.

They need to perform crazy stunts to reach normal levels, while many people are just as content with a stroll around the block.

I feel...nothing

[luchaugh]

I don't know, maybe I'm jaded, but these "record breaking" feats just don't seem to capture my attention or imagination. I have to think it would have been so exciting to have lived, say, a hundred years ago when these things were garnering world-wide attention and people like Lindberg became heroes. But nowadays, for whatever, reason... nothing. Nada. Zilch. Somewhat disappointed that I can't seem to get into this. Anyone else feel the same?

Re:I feel...nothing

[yodaj007]

I know exactly how you feel. I feel the same way. I honestly couldn't care less whether he succeeded or not. OTOH, the deal with his fuel is interesting and I'm waiting to see what they say about it.

Re:I feel...nothing

[tsotha]

Yeah. The problem for me is, from what I understand, the pilot was just a passenger/backup system. The computer flew the plane. And anyway these kind of records are getting more... shall we say "incremental". Around-the-world fligts have been done. Around-the-world flights without refeuling have been done. The problem with this kind of record is there are too many dependent clauses to make it exciting.

Re:I feel...nothing

[Otter]

Obviously the arrival of intercontinental flight opened up new horizons in a way that flying around the world to back where you started doesn't, even on a single tank of gas. On the other hand, I'm sure Lindbergh also received plenty of comments just like "Flying around the world without refueling is not a big accomplishment in my opinion."

There's plenty of exciting stuff going on in the world -- whether you choose to get excited about them is your decision.

Re:I feel...nothing

[Albio]

Comparing his reception to Lindberg's, I'd say most of Kansas feels the same way you do...

Re:I feel...nothing

[southpolesammy]

If he had departed from and arrived back at Chicago O'Hare early, that would have been an accomplishment.

Re:I feel...nothing

[Kalgash]

Nope. You're just dead inside. Like so many others you have been anihalated by the constant barage of daily 'life changing' events. You now find it almost impossible to get excited about something whose relative excitement level (by your standards) ranks up there with finding out the current terrorist threat level has been upped once again.

As a result (and to protect your mental faculties) your capacity for true joy has been severely curtailed. Don't worry. There are many like you out there. Jaded, bored and drowning in ennui. The rest of us allow ourselves the opportunatity to be hurt and perhaps even overloaded. As a result we feel real joy when others accomplish great things.

I don't really know if your type is more prevalant than my type and frankly I think the answer would probably depress the fuck out of me.

Try to find your wonderment. In your capacity for humanity. For our ability to push boundries and reach for the unknown. For the very real way that despite all of the dangers we pose to ourselves we have so far avoided utter distruction.

Unless you are willing to risk disappointment you will never know true joy.

Re:I feel...nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break, Mr. "holier-than-thou".

This record wasn't worth getting excited about, simply because it wasn't much of an accomplishment.

You will find that those you consider jaded, cynical and world weary just have a lot more experience in what actually goes on in this world. It's the ignorant and misinformed who get most excited about things.

I remember the recent hoax about the cactus "growing human hairs". As a biochemist, I looked at the page of methods, laughed a little (since they had ripped it verbatim from another art/genetics project, and that had borrowed it from some standard protocol), and moved on.

Others seemed to get very, very excited.

Now, according to you, I am dead inside.

I object: It is just that the excited ones (yourself included for this achievement), seem to be dead upstairs. Learn to think critically; look at what was actually achieved vs. the hype they're pushing.

You too may realise it just isn't a big deal. Rich boys with rich toys. Other millionaires sponsor a yacht in the America's Cup - Fossett just paid to be a tourist in a largely computer-controlled flight of a plane. Whoopee.

Re:I feel...nothing

[deglr6328]

So in summary:

"we haven't killed ourselves off or succumbed to extinction by natural disaster yet! yaaaaay for humans!!!!" :)

Re:I feel...nothing

[uptownguy]

You say you aren't jaded -- but in the entire 4.x billion year history of our planet -- quite possibly the only planet that sustains life anywhere, ever -- because, let's face it, we still don't know anything -- but we do know that in this many billions of years, no individual has EVER before done this. "It wasn't much of an accomplishment"!?!? I feel proud of myself when I walk around both lakes before noon -- all six miles. This guy stayed awake for nearly 70 hours straight and FLEW a plane AROUND THE ENTIRE PLANET, saw it all, saw mountains and deserts and ocean and ice -- he did this by himself. Sure he had a team supporting him. He had to. Even with this huge team, something this big had never been done successfully before 2005. He is the first. Sorry humanity couldn't do it sooner for you or come up with something that won't seem like hype. At least you're not jaded, right?

This is a damn big accomplishment and I, for one, salute the entire GlobalFlyer team!!!

First Titan, now this. 2005 is a big year in aviation. Big.

Re:I feel...nothing

[luchaugh]

I think, my frustration stems more from a feeling of , "if you have the cash, you can do cool shit. therefore, it's not cool to do shit just because you have mad cash". I LOVED Rick Hansen when he wheeled himself around the world, but Steve Fosset? Please. Gimme a strong pot o' coffee and his resources and I'll complete that flight, too (and I wouldn't expect the world to throw me a party).

Re:I feel...nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we're just dead inside to "a new world record!". If you watch enough news, there are world records being broken every day. Surely you can't be suggesting that I should be getting excited (and experiencing "true joy") all day every day.

We do not shield ourselves from life to prevent from being "hurt". We shield ourselves from 4 billion daily news events so we can get something done. If I felt "true joy" about every time everybody did something neat, I'd have no time left to breathe. I assure you that even those of us who think this event is ho-hum still feel pain; it's simply about things that matter.

I know what joy is; hearing about a millionare who went a bit further in a balloon than has been done before doesn't do it for me. This does not mean I'm "dead inside". (If my grandmother doesn't get excited by a new Linux kernel release, does that mean she's dead inside? No, she simply doesn't get excited by the same type of events.)

Please try not to hold everybody else in the world in such contempt.

Re:I feel...nothing

[pegasustonans]

You sound pretty full of yourself there sparky. People get satisfaction from different things. There isn't some standard of humanity that stipulates everybody has to get their rocks off from watching some guy snag the finale of a jaunt around the G in order to be a good specimen of the species.

That said, I myself enjoy the spectacle.

Re:I feel...nothing

[d474]

Although it's got the neat-o factor that no one has ever done it before, it's just sort of a demonstration of pointless goals. I mean, would everyone be that excited if the guy could fly around the world non-stop TWICE? No one would have done that before. THREE TIMES? Who cares!

It's a demonstration of an ability to do something that really isn't necessary. Did anyone ever doubt it could happen? Not really. Did anyone doubt we could go to space? Yes. Break the sound barrier? Yup. Go to the moon? No way!

But everyone was amazed when those obstacles were overcome and their World View changed when those goals were accomplished. Not this. It's just proof of concept that you can make a fuel efficient plane that can hold enough gas to complete the objective. Point A to point A.

I don't know if you saw my earlier post but this is why I'm not that impressed:

The guy sat on his "recliner like" chair for 67 hours and took frequent catnaps while auto pilot flew the plane. He drank sports drinks and milkshakes. Geeeezus, sounds like a typical 3 day weekend in these parts, only instead of "flying" a plane, I'm "controlling" the TV!

Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[Adam.Steinbaugh]

Wasn't Yuri Gagarin "the first person to successfully circle the earth in a nonstop solo flight" in Vostok 1, back in '61? Hyuk.

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[Jarnis]

you are missing the 'in an airplane' -qualifier.

Space capsules don't count.

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[SydShamino]

Clearly we need an award for "circling the earth in a nonstop solo flight" for each possible maximum altitude, perhaps in 10 m increments to make verification easier.

This way, there's still lots of new records to make! I wonder who will be first to circle the earth in a nonstop solo flight while never rising more than 50 m over sea (or land) level?

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[Dun Malg]

Wasn't Yuri Gagarin "the first person to successfully circle the earth in a nonstop solo flight" in Vostok 1, back in '61? Hyuk.

Heh. Sure, but I think he'd be disqualified from the competition because he didn't fly in an aircraft.

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[merlin_jim]

Yes but in Soviet Russia, earth circles you!!!

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[Trespass]

He wasn't really 'flying' in a narrow sense. Gagarin was in a ballistic trajectory in a craft he had relatively little control over.

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[kureido]

Gagarin wasn't flying, he was falling with style.

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[Idarubicin]

Wasn't Yuri Gagarin "the first person to successfully circle the earth in a nonstop solo flight" in Vostok 1, back in '61? Hyuk.

Yuri left most of his ship behind. GlobalFlyer didn't have disposable drop tanks--in principle, you could gas it up, and fly around the world again in exactly the same craft.

And yes, I know you were kidding. :)

Re:Catching up with the Soviets, are we?

[Adam.Steinbaugh]

It seems that most of the people, even those replying seriously, understood that I was joking. And so even the serious replies were amusing to me. But, you, sir, take the cake. I'm happy and proud to be an American and to live in America, though I dislike Bush, but I'm damned proud to be privately educated and not a product of the public school system. What's your excuse? hehe.

Sleep Schedule

[Leroy_Brown242]

I know there was some question as to when or if he was going to sleep. I'm very eager to see how that played out.

it's easy to say you're not going to sleep. But sleep is a very persistant predator. :)

Re:Sleep Schedule

[mcrusty]

Forget sleep. How did he go to the bathroom?

Re:Sleep Schedule

[milgr]

According to the article, he just took cat naps, but otherwise stayed awake for the flight.

Riding on a plane is boring enough for me. I can't imagine sitting in a plane for 67 hours.

Re:Sleep Schedule

[Leroy_Brown242]

Well, he's not flying to Cleveland. He's flying solo, setting records, in an experimental plane.

I think that might have been enough to keep his interest for a few more hours. :)

Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[zymano]

A millionaire with all the time on his hands.

This reminds me of Richard Bransons attempts to get media attention by crossing the atlantic in his high speed yacht to break some old records.

Flying around the world without refueling is not a big accomplishment in my opinion.

This was just for publicity for another rich guy.

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

Publicity for the same rich guy, in fact. Branson put up all the cash for this little excursion.

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[corngrower]

In 1986, with voyager, it was a big accomplishment. Using lightweight composite materials to construct an aircraft was cutting edge technology back then. Before that, aluminum alloys would have been used. Using aluminum, the aircraft would have had to been considerably larger. It may not have even been possible to construct a non-refueled, round the world aircraft without composite materials. It is not as big an accomplishment today, as now, the materials are more commonly used and have been in use for over 20 years now. Also the navigation equipment these days is much better and more lightweight than it was back in 1986.

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[IANAAC]

Publicity for the same rich guy, in fact. Branson put up all the cash for this little excursion.

Indeed. Our cafeteria at work has MSNBC tuned... it was nothing but Branson on the screen. And his bottles of booze.

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[LiquidCoooled]

Aerodynamics, Engine design, Material composition, planning, implimenting and most of all team work.

This kind of rich mans sport may be his idea of fun, and your idea of a wate of time, but do not underestimate the importance of something like this.
Its the first time anyone has flown a plane around the world none stop without refueling.

If only a fraction of the knowledge trickles down into modern aircraft and vehicles in general, then the fuel savings alone could be immense.

Others have gone before him, but none in one hop.
(heres a list of the other 68 rtw trips)

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[Grip3n]

Obviously this man has a lot of opportunity in his life. He has obtained enough wealth to do whatever he so chooses, and rather than living a shallow quiet life of no regard, he has chosen to live life to its fullest.

He has decided to break records, to participate in the production of a machine which would allow a human to do something no other human has done before. He has chosen to make history not just as a man with money, but a man with money who decided to live the adventure.

Contrast this with the opposite: gather money, buy, sell, rinse and repeat until you die. Is that what you would have rather seen? Would you have congratulated this man on living a life worth living having done that? I doubt it. This man hasn't do that - he has decided to do something more.

The Richard Bransons in this world are men who have opportunity and take it. They live their lives to a degree that we cannot because of our financial situation. They could easily, EASILY decide to lay back and do nothing at all. These men do not do that, rather they willingly decide to pioneer, to carve a path for the rest of humanity. Whether it is creating extremely efficient aircraft, going into space or more, they are living their lives to its fullest potential.

Remember: All men die, few men really live.

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[LiquidCoooled]

Oooooooooooops i forgot about that.

Thank god my sig is here to save the day.

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[mamba-mamba]

You don't seem to know what you are talking about. There are two men: Branson and Fosset.

AFAICT, all Branson did is write a check and provide moral support.

The pilot was Fosset. Apparently they are friends. Fosset is not that rich. The article refers to him as a millionaire. Branson, on the other hand, is referred to as a billionaire. So I think it is incorrect to say that Fosset can do whatever he chooses. It might be more accurate to say that he has enough determination to accomplish his objectives.

Other than that, I guess I agree with you. I like reading about Branson and Fosset and their ilk. I don't see why they shouldn't keep doing the stuff they do. Rutan wouldn't have nearly as much fun without guys like Branson and Fosset and Paul Allen to help pay for everything. And I like reading about Rutan's accomplishments, too.

MM

Re:Mod me down but this is no big accomplishment

[daigu]

While it may be true that "most men live quiet lives of desperation", doing something no one has done before can be as desperate and shallow as any trust fund baby travelling the world on her yacht or doing something you hate for the money.

Don't get me wrong. I think this is a great accomplishment. I just think we need to be careful of hero-worship - because there is a fine, often imperceptible line between living your life to its fullest potential and being on Jackass.

Sleep?

[weston]

"The 60-year-old millionaire adventurer stayed awake for almost all of the trip, taking only brief catnaps in the jet"

A 60 year old staying awake for nearly three days straight is as impressive to me as fuel economy. I couldn't make two full days straight, even when I was 19...

Re:Sleep?

[Greyfox]

Even more so, a 60 year old going 4 days without going to the bathroom. I'm only 35 and I'm lucky if I can make it 4 hours without having to take a leak...

I know, I know, they probably had a waste disposal system on the jet. Though it'd be pretty funny if that was one of the things they'd overlooked... "OK, now I'm going to test the Jet's waste disposal system... Aaah... Er... guys... tell me the jet has a waste disposal system?"

Re:Sleep?

[Stevyn]

I think the fact that he could take a cat nap shows his involvement in this was just as a backup. The computer did all the work accept for the beginning and ending of the flight. I don't mean to sound cynical, but this is hardly the feat on the same scale as Charles Lindbergh.

Re:Sleep?

[Scott7477]

The gentleman probably took a long a case of Diet Coke to help him out...:)

Re:Sleep?

[Rude Turnip]

"Aaah... Er... guys... tell me the jet has a waste disposal system?""

Response: "uhm, depends I suppose."

Re:Sleep?

[standsolid]

Hey! I'm 19 and I can hardly go 16 hours wihout sleep!

Re:Sleep?

[IdntUnknwn]

I think he had to be there to manually adjust the distribution of fuel within the airplane since the fuel was such a large percentage of the airplane's weight. I'm sure he also had to make a few decisions on how best to make use of jetstreams. Not necessarily tasks that autopilot can really do, at least not at the moment.

Bravo.

[peacefinder]

He landed at the same airport he started from, and he chose it because he needed a really long runway for takeoff, right? So I wonder if he touched down on the runway at a point beyond where he took off. It'd be a real shame to go all that way and end up a few hundred meters short...

Just kidding, Steve. Great work, and I can't wait to hear what you'll be trying next!

Re:Bravo.

[IdntUnknwn]

Actually landing required a shorter distance than taking off.

Somehow not as exciting

[JoeShmoe]

As Voyager, the first aircraft to circle the globe in a single continuous non-stop flight. I don't really see the record-breaking advance in flight that results from having one person in the cockpit instead of two.

I mean, the point of Voyager having two people was they could take shifts at the wheel to get rest on the extremely long flight. But this is essentially what Steve Fossett had as well, since mission control was watching his instruments while he took naps.

If anything, this seems like an advancement in communications and remote monitoring more than flight.

Still, the Rutan brothers are clearly channeling Orville and Wilbur Wright so, bravo and kudos all around. But I'm just not that "jazzed up" about these terrestrial "records". Wake me from my power nap when the next space record is up for grabs.

-JoeShmoe
.

XF-11?

[digitac]

Is it just me, or does the GlobalFlyer look a lot like the XF-11?
http://www.check-six.com/images/XF-11/xf11-3q-wide .jpg
::Digitac

Re:XF-11?

[MatthewNewberg]

Maybe Burt Rutan is really Howards Hughes reincarnated.. There sure are a lot of simlarities between the two.

Conspiracy Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a great accomplishment but am I the only one who is suspicious of his "fuel problem"? Hardly anyone was paying attention to his flight when he took off and then all of the sudden he might not have enough fuel? The media is all over the story and giving hourly updates of the now doomed flight. It sounds like something Richard Branson would come up with. He's a sucker for the publicity stunts.

Now hear this

[mingot]

I have it on good authority that he took a shortcut.

Re:Now hear this

[Leroy_Brown242]

"I don't have the fuel! Take a left over the North pole!"

Congratulations most deservedly goes to...

[PhantomHarlock]

Jon Karkow, my neighbor and project manager/designer and chief test pilot of this little airplane. It was his baby from start to finish. (in addition to all the other congratulations all around!)

--M

Re:Congratulations most deservedly goes to...

[zogger]

Way cool! Ask him if they are contemplating a solar/electric attempt. That would be interesting. Give him a WTG guy for me as well!

The rest of the story

[Nom du Keyboard]

And his luggage will arrive next week -- at the latest!

Around the Earth .. Really???

[OzPeter]

I'd be one of the first to congratulate him for his flight, but how do you define "Around the earth"?? Especially when:

a) He was 3000 km shy of the circumference at the equator.

b) I don't belive he made it into the southern hemisphere.

Re:Around the Earth .. Really???

[Big_Al_B]

From the official website for the project:

For the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer and its pilot Steve Fossett to set a world record for the first solo, non-stop, non-refuelled circumnavigation of the world they will have to follow a strict set of rules laid down by the governing body of aviation record attempts, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

Re:Around the Earth .. Really???

[OzPeter]

Yeah I just dug into it and discovered that the FAI rules will award a circumnavigation if it is down to 2/3s of the great circle route distance.

Still, in this day and age of technology I would think that you could toughen up the rules, so you have to exceed the minimum circumference of the planet.

Re:Around the Earth .. Really???

[peter303]

They've been doing such races for over a century (including land). Its generally defined as 20,000 miles or more, or about 80% of a great circle. There are meteorological and land area problems doing a true great circle.

Re:Around the Earth .. Really???

[EvanED]

Another replay gave a link, but for people who are too lazy to click, the record authority has some rules. The main one is that the flight must be of a certain distance, which is the length of the tropic of Cancer/Capricorn.

Distance covered?

[rdurell]

So he took off... took 67 (or 80 hours depending on your source) and landed in the same spot. I seem to be running into a divide by 0 error on my calculator here.

So what is the practical application here?

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[Atzanteol]

That's fine, but I think we should be concentrating more on medical science, and stem cell research.

Do you get it? Do YOU? Probably not. I'll explain. The "world" as it were does not need to concentrate on "one thing" at a time. Believe it or not, people as a whole are capable of accomplishing many tasks at once. Go figure.

Distance Record Broken

[slipnslidemaster]

"The old record was set in 1962 by a B-52 bomber that travelled about 19,300 kilometres. "

I have to say that I was surprised to read that the record of longest distance by plane that he broke was set in 1962.

My initial thought was that one of the superpowers, America or Russia would have tried to show their supremecy with a record of that type. Especially with the Americans having the U2 and the SR-71.

I guess the space race superceded that type of bravado at that point.

Re:Distance Record Broken

[scharkalvin]

Didn't Burt's OTHER plane, ie: Voyager set the
previous record?

Re:Distance Record Broken

[Leroy_Brown242]

If I remember correctly, the U2 has to be fueled in mid air to make a global loop.

I know for a fact the SR-71 must be refueled after take off to go far at all. It doesn't retain it's fuel well on the ground.

Re:Distance Record Broken

[Politburo]

You have to remember, the U-2 and SR-71 were extremely high tech and secret planes. We would not boast about their achievements. To do so would unnecessarily give information to the Soviets about the capabilities (unless one was lying about the achievements, but I won't get into CoIntelPro...)

Re:Distance Record Broken

[Unkle]

The SR-71 couldn't even take off with a full load of fuel--not because of weight (AFAIK), but because the skin, which was also the gas tank, was designed to expand at Mach 3 speeds, and thus actually leaked fuel at normal temperature on the ground. The first thing the Blackbird did after taking off was fuel up.

But the previous record being in 1962 suprises me as well. But I'm not sure if it's a matter of it being so long ago or the fact that a B-52 can travel so far.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[Leroy_Brown242]

Things learned on such a long distance flight over earth, can easily be used to make a flight work out of our atmosphere.

You've got to take some smaller steps before you break into a full run.

I think that the cool crap that the gang over at Scaled Composites has been doing lately has done more to spark interest in space flight than NASA has done in the last decade.

Congrats!

[Tufriast]

Now if we can just get flights like these down to cheaper costs... It'd be nice to goto Japan for $50.

Band is Important

[Rollsbot]

Actually, the marching band was there to keep the pilot awake throughout the landing process.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[PepsiProgrammer]

Agreed, but exploring the parts of this planet we have not yet been able to get at is still fairly important as well. Not that this acomplishment really seems to matter much, or have any real practical purpose.

This looks like a bad bet taken too far. Someone tell me one practical application of this acomplishment.

*equips asbestos suit*

Designed by Burt Rutan

[Ktistec Machine]

Burt Rutan = Tony Stark?

Re:Designed by Burt Rutan

[AceCaseOR]

Ehh, more like Richard Branson = Tony Stark. They've both got the booze problems.

sorry, around the world? since when?!

[Mark19960]

how do we measure 'around the world'
I call 'around the world' around the WHOLE planet, not around a small portion of it.

if this is the case, I can do to the north pole, drop a pole in the ice at the exact north, and walk around the pole... and yeah! I walked around the world in 2 seconds!

look at all the graphics of where this guy flew north, then around then down again. I DARE them to try taking off at the equador, and REALLY go around the world... not this farce of going north to go around the short portion of the planet.

FAKE! do it right! do it like the shuttle does it, around the REAL world...

Re:sorry, around the world? since when?!

[OzPeter]

Pointing out the reply I made to my own post above about the same topic. The FAI rules allow for a flight to be down to 2/3s of the great circle route distance.

So blame the FAI if you aren't happy with the record.

Re:sorry, around the world? since when?!

[groomed]

Actually, from the global flyer website:

The FAI's rules state that a record attempt like this must start and finish at the same airfield and cross all meridians of the globe. What's more the course must not be less than the very precise figure of 36,787.559 kilometres (around 23,000 miles) which is equal in length to the Tropic of Cancer. To allow the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer to catch the vital jet stream winds, the FAI rules don't oblige that record attempts follow the imaginary line of the Tropic itself but simply that the distance flown exceeds it.

So it seems more or less legit.

Re:sorry, around the world? since when?!

[EvanED]

The length of the flight must be at least as long as the tropic of Cancer/Capricorn, and the path must not cross the 66 2/3 parallel.

Re:sorry, around the world? since when?!

[iggymanz]

would be cool to have someone do the first solo equatorial great circle flight around the world, but flying is best done over a route that keeps you near nice places to land as much of the time as possible; fly the equator and you'll be passing over places where they stick poison darts in you and/or eat you.

Re:sorry, around the world? since when?!

[Zaffle]

look at all the graphics of where this guy flew north, then around then down again. I DARE them to try taking off at the equador, and REALLY go around the world... not this farce of going north to go around the short portion of the planet.

They did it according to the official record keeping requirements. They flew the equivilant distance of the circumfrance of the tropic of capricorn.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[tsotha]

Sadly, this kind of project is likely to make space programs less likely to be funded. As expensive as they are, rockets would be far more expensive if manufacturers couldn't depend on comsats to help amortize development costs. As super-efficient high-altitude aircraft become more advanced, some of those satellites will be replaced with solar-powered aircraft. So that $10B mission will end up costing $11B, making it less likely to be funded at all.

I don't get it

[Kainaw]

This is the same guy who did the first trip around the world in a balloon. He didn't land or refuel that time. So, isn't this his second trip around the world without refuelling?

Congratulations

[txuspe]

Congratulations to the team! Hehe ;-)

Bigger deal for Burt Rutan

[ShamanDave]

We can debate whether Fosset deserves praise, but I think it's pretty clear that it's a huge accomplishment for Burt Rutan.

Re:Bigger deal for Burt Rutan

[feed_those_kitties]

We can debate whether Fosset deserves praise, but I think it's pretty clear that it's a huge accomplishment for Burt Rutan.

Slight edit from me:

We can debate whether Fosset deserves praise, but I think it's pretty clear that it's another huge accomplishment for Burt Rutan.

an average of 343 MPH is well within reason

[baine]

343 MPH is a reasonable speed once wind correction is taken into account. Remember that where he spent most of his time flying, steady winds in excess of 100 mph are not uncommon.

Although none of the articles specify, I'd guess that the 285 MPH mark is either an IAS (indicated air speed - how fast the plane is going as indicated to the pilot) or more likely TAS (true air speed - how fast the plane is moving through the surrounding air). Ground air speed takes factors like wind into account, and can either be slower (in the event of a headwind) or faster (when tail winds are present) than the TAS.

Movemovemove!

[Dachannien]

Fossett managed to touch down at 2:48 p.m. EST, to the delight of mission control staff, a small crowd and a marching band that had gathered at the airstrip to welcome him ...leaving 47 injured.

Re:Steve Fossett, dead at 60

[MBraynard]

Oh... so that was the shortcut through the North Atlantic.

Re:Nonstop Flights?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Well, I think the space shuttle would have a hard time circling the earth at the altitude that the global flier did it.

In other news....

[tinrobot]

Mr. Fossett has just set another record for the longest time spent standing in front of a urinal.

Re:In other news....

[ibman]

Where does one piss while on a 67 hr non-stop flight?

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[gimpynerd]

Maybe not but we haven't really been focusing on our space programs much at all. Although new moon missions are in the works...

America

[The Bungi]

Still adventurous and innovative. Congratulations to these guys, this is quite an accomplishment.

Re:America

[TravisWatkins]

I believe the pilot was British. I know Branson is.

Why the hype?

[Macrobat]

This really seems to be overhyped to me. It is, at most, an incremental improvement over the status quo. Lindberg crossing the Atlantic was significant because nothing like it had ever been done; but we first orbited the Earth back in the '60s, military aircraft circle the globe in flight constantly, and there has never really been a commercial need for a plane that could go more than halfway around the world at one time. So, yeah, congratulations and all, but this sounds more like a millionaire sailing around the world in his yacht than the next Magellan.

Typical slashdot...

[Chris_Keene]

...I submitted the same story a month a go. Once again slashdot posting old news.

Official Sites

[loconet]

Here is the official site containing photos, videos, flight logs, etc and Steve's challanges page.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[geoffspear]

Right. Just like we replaced all of our satellites with balloons once he proved a human can circle the Earth in a balloon.

Idiot.

Fly Fly what is Fly

[SuperTrozTX]

Rich guy stays up for 67 hours, while another rich guy's toy works around him.

Hoo..... ray.

This is as blah as can be.
If I was a rich man...

So Who Else Was On the Flight?

[eno2001]

I still don't get what the big deal is about. People have done this kind of thing before. But I can't seem to find any information about who else was on the flight with him.

Re:So Who Else Was On the Flight?

[Skater]

No one else was on the flight. That was the big deal.

Voyager went around the world unrefueled, but it had two pilots, not one.

Re:So Who Else Was On the Flight?

[athakur999]

Well, the big deal about this flight is that it was supposed to be the first solo non-stop flight around the world without refuelling.

So I'd imagine the answer to the question "who else was on the flight with him" is "nobody" ;)

Gas?

[CODiNE]

Anyone know how much gas was left in the tank when he landed? Plenty to spare or was he flying on fumes towards the end?

-Don.

spinoff of private space effort

[peter303]

The same company to make the first certified space plane made this airplane. Each new super high tech plane design improves the overall technology.

Some image captures from the live feed

[aallan]

For those of you who couldn't manage to scrape a connection to the live feed, and I know I had a lot of difficulty, I've put some images captures of the take off on Monday, the flight [1, 2] itself, the decent and of course the landing up on my blog.

The machine these are sitting on once hosted three front page Slashdot stories simultaneously so I'm not too worried about posting this... err, I think I'll just mail my sysadmin.

Al.

Re:Some image captures from the live feed

[soliptic]

The machine these are sitting on once hosted three front page Slashdot stories simultaneously

OT (sorry):

I'm fascinated. That's pretty amazing! Do you have a link to that day's /. ?

Re:Some image captures from the live feed

[Creepy Crawler]

I second that!

I'd love to see the charred remains of a server after 3 arso^H^H^H^Hslashdottings.

Re:Some image captures from the live feed

[aallan]

Well I know this was one of them, as it was my site. I'm afraid I don't recall what the other stories were, I think one of them was something to do with wireless networking, I don't recall the other at all. Both pointed to other virtual hosts on the same server located in a co-lo rack somewhere in Sheffield.

I suppose if you dig around enough you could find the other two stories on that day where the site hosting the content resolved back to the same address. Although I think the server has been moved since then, so YMMV.

Al.

military surplus airfield

[peter303]

This place had an extra long runway, formerly used by B-52s. Great for extra large experimental planes.

Re:-1, Troll

[exley]

Yeah, that too.

No B52's in WWII

[Anonymous Coward]

There were no B52's until after 1952, you dummy.

fast estimate using toes and fingers

[tinkerton]

I guess the fuel usage should be counted per hour, decreasing as the plane gets lighter.

The plane had about 18200 lbs of fuel at the start, and possibly lost 2600, or 1/7. The flight took 67 hours instead of 80(very favorable wind). He should have some left. 18000*67/80= 15200. 400 gallons left?
Give a nudge to the numbers because the plane might be lighter and might fly higher, and the margin is bigger. I Can't do it with toes and fingers.
Also, The plane can reportedly glide for 200km on empty tanks.

A better calculation would take in account the weight of the plane

tubes and protein shakes

[peter303]

The guy peed into an attached tube. He avoided eating roughage for a week so he would hardly need to shit in three days according to web site.

The first several space flights made no allowance for the toilet. That caused a funny incident during a several-hour delay of John Glenn's flight.

Re:tubes and protein shakes

[Leroy_Brown242]

Yeah, there are tricks you can play to reduce your need. Pilots have been doing this for years.

Heh, and yeah, Glenn pissed himself. :)

Salina Muni Airport Info

[jyang]

http://www.airnav.com/airport/SLN

12300 ft runway 17-35. From CNN I could see ppl stopped their cars on hiway shoulders to see the landing. It's a town of a few thousand, even the whole town turned out it'd called "small crowd" by network standard. I am sure it's big there.

Secret weapons of the USAAF!

[Thud457]

it's a 12,000 foot runway that they used to train B52 bomber's during WW2.

I don't think so.

rich people are boring

[cot]

Somehow, the idea of random joe schmoe's doing this kind of thing is a lot more endearing. Looking back at what the Wright brothers did, while running a bicycle shop, is pretty cool, and I'm sure many of their less successful peers were also coming from modest backgrounds.

Nowadays, technology has advanced to the point that it takes some serious cash to do anything like this on an interesting scale. For some reason, watching bored rich people kill their idle time is pretty lame compared to watching someone who has to work a 9-5 job to pay their bills stay up late chasing a dream.

Smithsonian

[MDMurphy]

The Smithsonian already has Voyager, if they end up with SS1 and GlobalFlyer then Burt Rutan is on his way to his own room at the place.

Re:Smithsonian

[cr@ckwhore]

Bravo! I agree with that 100% ... Rutan's designs never cease to amaze me, and someday I'd like to shake his hand.

Deserves a small reception

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does he deserve a big reception?

Since the Yeager/Rutan flight already did this, the only novelty here is that he managed to make the flight with one pilot watching the autopilot fly the plane instead of two pilots watching the autopilot fly the plane. Can't get too excited about that.

On the other hand, if there was an award for staying awake during a long, boring flight he'd have my vote.

and one willing to risk his life at it too

[Shivetya]

Many of his adventures have a big chance in ending in a lethal failure. Yeah he has money, but he is living the dreams of many who do not and inspiring some of them to try to put themselves in the same position.

Losers rarely want to do what winners have to do.

Re:and one willing to risk his life at it too

[dcam]

I saw "The Aviator" recently, which is an excellent movie.

That was one of the things that impressive about the character portrayed in the movie was his determination and his willingless to risk his own life. Note I say the character potrayed in the movie because I am wary taking anything portrayed in a movie as history. In the movie, he flew his own experimental planes, including a spyplane which crashed. In that crash one lung collapsed, his heart moved, he had burns to 70% of his body, 8 ribs were shattered and he had both legs broken. It was by no means certain that he would live.

He also broke the top speed for aircraft, travelled around the world in record time.

The guy might have been mentally unstable, but he achieved things.

Re:Congratulations to Scaled Composites & Stev

[jangobongo]

The AP story I read said the Global Flyer got assistance in the form of strong tail winds, which would help to conserve fuel and shave off time.

The article also has some links to video of the landing and a Steve Fossett post-landing press conference video.

I prefer a Chuck Yeager type of accomplishment

[ClosedSource]

I'm not interested in these "this time I did it with my fingers crossed" records.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[Leroy_Brown242]

Agreed.

I just wish NASA would follow suit and take the same attitude.

Next up...

[Capt_Troy]

Who will be the first person to circle the globe without stoping using a human powered flying vehicle?

Big Deal

[HbInd]

Fossett has a whole team in mission control who feed him navigational , weather , aircraft data and in constant communication with Fossett. All he doing up there is piloting the plane. They could have could have the plane of remote control and still made the trip. Fossett should lose his mission control , navigate around the world on his own. then proabably he can compared with Magellan.

Re:Big Deal

[jthayden]

then proabably he can compared with Magellan.

Wouldn't he need to die in the pacific islands in order to be compared to Magellan?

Web Site

[FrankDrebin]

I don't know if they received orders of magnitude more hits to the website than expected, but man they did not handle it well. Performance was spotty at best, ranging from completely unresponsive to partly responsive, at least from the two high-speed ISPs I regularly use.

The lack of performance of their website reduces the accomplishment of flying, at least in my mind. This is where the Mars Rover folks got things right. It's easy for folks to feel like a part of the accomplishment there, IMHO partly because the website is accessable, responsive, and on "my" browser when it's wanted. Not so for the global flyer.

Re:Web Site

[halo8]

The lack of performance of their website reduces the accomplishment of flying, at least in my mind.

OMG your an idiot

Hmmm

[BigLinuxGuy]

Wonder how long it would take an SR-71 to circumnavigate the globe? Of course, it can't fly solo (at least as far as I know).

Sheesh facts please

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuri Gagarin Did not Completely orbit hte globe...i.e. he did not Land where he took off and did completely orbit the Earth.

He was the First Human into space and thats enough prestige for anyone.

John Glenn completely orbited the Earth 3 times.

Fosset did something interesting but not earth shattering. If he gets to Mars first...THEN i will give due Credit.

Hold off the congratulations, or temper them a bit

[jd]

It still has to be verified by the International Aerospace organization, before it's an official record to anyone. I expect the Guiness Book of World Records will be sending people to examine this as well.

When someone claims to break a record, people take it damn seriously. It is scrutinized to the Nth degree, no matter how much evidence there is. This may take a week or more. THEN, when it is official and certified, it will be a record that everyone involved can be proud of.

Anybody can win a title by cheating, but then it isn't really won and celebration isn't proper. I think this was fair and above-board, but that's just an opinion. The officials supervising this attempt can't just come out with an opinion, they need to present a certifiable fact.

Kudos for having survived the trip, without crashing, running out of fuel, navigating the airflows well enough to go the distance, flying a plane that was likely unfliable for most of the journey. All those are undisputed and are worth every ounce of praise being given.

Credit for flying solo in a jet around the world non-stop without refuelling? For that, you'll need to wait a bit.

Around the world

[killermookie]

Out if curiousity, what constitutes going around the world?

I mean, if I took the route of Canada to England through northern Russia, to Alaska and touchdown back to Canada, would that be considered around the world?

Cause I would expect that following the equator around the world would add a much larger amount of travel.

Re:Around the world

[IdntUnknwn]

The FAI's rules state that a record attempt like this must start and finish at the same airfield and cross all meridians of the globe. What's more the course must not be less than the very precise figure of 36,787.559 kilometres (around 23,000 miles) which is equal in length to the Tropic of Cancer. To allow the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer to catch the vital jet stream winds, the FAI rules don't oblige that record attempts follow the imaginary line of the Tropic itself but simply that the distance flown exceeds it.

http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/Aircraf t/ RecordAttempt/index.jsp

Once around the world non-stop... check!

[iolaus]

Let the race to be the first to circumnavigate the globe twice without landing begin. Honestly, it's kind of a neat accomplishment but the usefulness seems less than staggering.

Yep, he made it... or never left.

[mrdogi]

Accordiong to the Live Tracking site he's no longer moving...

Radio chatter

[Rorschach1]

Did anyone else catch the radio chatter as he switched over to the Selina tower frequency? Lots of congratulations from airlines, and one

"Fossett, you're a stud."

I'll be really impressed when...

[Dale549]

he drives a car around the world without refueling. Balloon, OK. Airplane, sure. Let's see him drive!

Waste Disposal System

[jac1962]

I wonder how big his piss can was?

IIRC, the USAF's U-2S high altitude reconnaissance aircraft piss can held about a quart.

Sometimes, if we were turning a jet for a second sortie the same day, the crew chief would forget to empty the can (thank God I was an avionics specialist!) after the first pilot had made his contribution. The second pilot would discover this oversight when his urine would fill the can and then back up the tube to overflow in his pressure suit, where it sloshed around for the remainder of the flight. . .

There is no facility for disposing of solid waste though. Every now and then a mission would abort because the pilot was suffering from "gastrointestinal distress." In the 5th Reconnaissance Squadron's (IYAABYAS!) ops shack, there is plaque high up on the wall, with a roll of toilet paper attached, commerating all those brave U-2 pilots who joined the exclusive "Stratoshitters Club." One guy's name was on there twice. . .

Re:Waste Disposal System

[vmcto]

Dude I just crapped my pants laughing so hard!!!

hmmm

[mnemonic_]

liberal arts major?

Errr, no.

[jd]

• First, he didn't fly. He was in space, not in an atmosphere.
  
• Second, the record being set stipulated a jet, and Vostok wasn't jet-powered.
  
• Third, he did not land where he started, so it is debatable as to whether you could call it "round the world" in the same sense.
  
• Fourth, he was more a passanger than a pilot, as he had virtually zero control.
  
• Fifth, the vehicle was not the same on landing as it was on take-off (it was minus a LOT of fuel tanks, rocketry, etc)
  
• Sixth, Russia being what it was, there weren't exactly hordes of independent monitors to confirm that the flight was what it purported to be. (The same applies to all American flights of that era.)
  
• Seventh - uhh, someone help me here, I want to get up to ten reasons why Yuri's achievement - whilst spectacular - was NOT even remotely connected with this.
  

Re:Errr, no.

[strabo]

Yuri Gagarin didn't fly Vostok 1 around the world...

In 1961 it was still Soviet Russia... Vostok 1 flew him!

(sorry - couldn't help myself...)

Seriously, though - another good reason (#7) would be that Yuri didn't actually land in Vostok 1. He ejected and landed via parachute.

From here:

Once in orbit, Yuri Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft. Vostok's reentry was controlled by a computer program sending radio commands to the space capsule. Although the controls were locked, a key had been placed in a sealed envelope in case an emergency situation made it necessary for Gagarin to take control. As was planned, Cosmonaut Gagarin ejected after reentry into Earth's atmosphere and landed by parachute.

Those are Canadian hours

[simetra]

they're smaller, so more... 80 Canadian hours = approx 67 Regular hours.

Re:the real heroes

[Quill_28]

Well, for one you don't normally risk your life when designing a plane.

Also, I think Rutan designed the plane, there is plenty to read about him all over the internet.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[Retric]

While an extreme example you could use this as a test case in designing highly fuel efferent passenger planes. Just looks at it the same way some car company's look at formula one. It's a good to look at the bleeding edge then see how many of those new ideas we can passed onto your mass produced products.

B-52's? I don't think so.

[jamrock]

it's a 12,000 foot runway that they used to train B52 bomber's during WW2.

Yeah, I know, I'm being gratuitously pedantic (sorry, I'm an aviation enthusiast), but the B-52 first flew in 1952, a full seven years after the end of WW II. You probably mean B-29's, the largest bomber of the era.

2,600 lbs of fuel?

[Alwin Henseler]

It seems inconceivable that they really lost 2,600 lbs of fuel (..)

Ahhh I see, so that's where that foul smell was coming from this morning! I just thought it was my armpits, but appearantly it wasn't that after all..

Re:2,600 lbs of fuel?

[greenegg77]

Are you Sure(tm)?

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[Retric]

As a young person I see most medical research as a huge money sink with little overall benefit. If we had spent 10% of the money we spend on medical research over the last 30 years on fustian research we would have real working reactors in production TODAY. Thus cutting down on the amount of air born pollutants and increasing the quality of life for everyone on the globe.

I am all for researching protean folding and keeping plagues at bay but if you look at total medical spending on the average person over there lifetime most of it occurs when there is little real benefit. Something like half of all prescription drugs used in this country are providing no noticeable benefit. Most supplements do little more than provide expensive piss but basic research has provided worlds of benefit. I am all for hip replacement surgery but where is the need for every person dieing from old age to rack up huge medical bills before they die? An Alzheimer's cure would prevent immense suffering, but we have to look at that in the context of other things we can do to help humanity out.

PS: I am pointing out why spending huge amounts of money on medical research is self-limiting. If we had spend all our money in the 1800's on medicine we would not have computers today which is why it's good to pursue more than one avenue of research.

PPS: I can't tell if your agreeing with the idea That's fine, but I think we should be concentrating more on medical science, and stem cell research. or mocking it.

He cheated!!!

[middlemen]

The radius of the earth is approx 6400kilometers, which makes the circumference 2*pi*6400 km = 40213 approx.. that is the circumference around the equator.. he has flown around some other latitude thus reducing the distance.... -- In front of every successful man is a woman's behind!

Re:He cheated!!!

[Johan Veenstra]

Actually the circumfence of the world is 40000km (almost per definition, see history of the definition of the meter).

Re:He cheated!!!

[middlemen]

what is world? World is a metaphoric term used to define any sort of encapsulation... ur world can be just ur home, it can be the earth, it can be the ocean, it can be anything... anyway i assume u meant Earth...

Assistance from the wind

[Anonymous Coward]

The total fuel load of the GlobalFlyer was 18100 lbs of jet fuel, and 50 lbs of beans. [tt] [toottoot]

Re:Congratulations to Scaled Composites & Stev

[WhiteBandit]

Congratulations to Fosset and the folks at Scaled Composites!. I'll bet he's had enough flying for awhile and he's probably wanting to take a shower and freshen up some right away.

I dunno, based on how much time this guy spends trying to go around the world in vessels with small volumes, I'd be willing to wager that he doesn't enjoy showers. ;)

Record SETTING Flight is more appropriate

[stoyan]

Since he did not break any record.

Re:Record SETTING Flight is more appropriate

[Big_Al_B]

Except the "longest nonstop flight without refueling" record. It is an established mark that Fossett broke. And it is different than the "shortest time for a single pilot to circumvent the globe in a nonstop/nonrefueled flight" record that Fossett _set_ today.

Re:Record SETTING Flight is more appropriate

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Since he did not break any record.

No records at all, except longest distance in 24-hour solo flight, and maybe half-a-dozen others.

Please no

[infinite9]

I'd rather listen to the kid with the kazoo.

Re:Hold off the congratulations, or temper them a

[drinkypoo]

flying a plane that was likely unfliable for most of the journey

If it was unflyable, how the hell did he fly it? That's like saying you ate an inedible piece of food or something. Or are you saying that the plane was falling during those times, and he added style?

You would think

[Jozer99]

You would think that they would have figured out how to make a working fuel system by now. Last time a Rutan aircraft went around the world (in the late 1980s, the first 2 nostop flight around the world), their fuel system went completely, leaving them to basically manually control the fuel for much of the flight.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[RocketScientist]

You're overlooking the real value here, which was pretty much all accomplished before the aircraft left the ground. The materials science and engineering done to create an aircraft for this mission is the practical purpose. The actual flight was just to show that (1) it all worked, and (2) to provide the sponsors with incentive to foot the bill.

Keep in mind that the aircraft was yet another fine product of Scaled Composites, makers of SpaceShip 1, Voyager, and a host of other projects found on their website. They're pretty much the leading edge of aerospace engineering, and projects like this help advance the state of the art with private funding. In other words, if you want privately funded research in this field, you're going to need to get really smart, frugal, practical companies backed by people with lots of money in order to get oustanding results.

As opposed to good old NASA, flying (err...not flying?) a 25 year old space shuttle on 35 year old design, and spending who-knows-how-much-now on the ISS, where there's no science, but lots of "hey, we're stuck up here and there's not enough food" happening. Maybe it's time for more private funding for this kind of thing? It seems to be getting good results.

Something simimlar

[AbRASiON]

How did that completely unmanned radio controlled airplane go? I think it was meant to go from Canada to the UK or some such?

That is like +500 geek and +500 cool.

Congratulations to this chap though - shame more people didn't greet him.

Well ...

[Henk Poley]

Both the Russians and the Americans say they never did such experiments, but for 2 x 20 million dollars, 8 months training -and of course a cooperative partner- you could try it yourself.

If you just meant a flying verhicle you could go cheaper btw.

Re:Hold off the congratulations, or temper them a

[jd]

There are degrees of unfliability - if it's binary, it's multi-digit. :)

GlobalFlyer was designed to be capable of generating lift on a full fuel load, which would have generated massive strain on the wings. This means that the aircraft's wings would have steadily deformed from the initial configuration as the fuel level reduced. This would likely have altered lift and drag, which means that the plane would have flown very differently throughout the journey.

Then, there is the matter of the missing fuel. The fuel was likely lost from a specific fuel tank, rather than evenly across all of them. This means that the center of gravity would NOT be aligned with the center of the aircraft. Initially, that would not have been significant, but as the fuel level declined, the shift would have increased. This is likely why they shifted fuel around, part-way through the flight, to reduce the impact.

The strong tailwind helped by increasing his speed for the same level of fuel used, but wind in any direction is likely to mean variation in windspeed across the different control surfaces and possibly turbulence. The aircraft was built to be as light as humanly possible, it was never built to survive anything but the mildest of conditions. It wasn't too rough - obviously - but it would have made controlling the aircraft harder than it would otherwise have been.

He should try flying the opposite direction now

[brj]

It will be much more impressive if someone flies around the world in the other direction.

Mr. Fossets

[Nelsinho]

fantastic this man or better this rich man, great challenge it is one winner.

story on CNN

[planckscale]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/03/03/globalflyer.fos sett/index.html

with the Virgin Atlantic motif, cruised at speeds of more than 200 mph for most of the flight at an altitude of about 45,000 miles (13, 716 meters).

Wow! At 45,000 miles, he must have circumnavigated the moon also!

Interesting similarity

[DaveAtFraud]

I caught a news article about Northrop testing their "surrogate" (still has a pilot during development) Medium Altitude Long Endurance UAV. The plane is being developed with, you guessed it, Scaled Composites. Here's a picture.

Re:Interesting similarity

[corngrower]

Just looking at the picture, you can tell that the plane, Proteus, was designed by Scaled Composites. The shape of the rudder and elevators is similar to those on Space Ship One.

Blame Libya

[Anonymous Coward]

Voyager had to follow different rules that included equator crossings. Libya almost scuttled the attempt by refusing access to their airspace(Less than a year after Reagan sent in the F-111s and killed Ghaddafi's infant daughter). To reduce the chances of politics interfering the rules were relaxed to allow more flexible overland routing. (China also fucked with a balloon flight as well)

Re:Not ALL the way around the Earth

[Big_Al_B]

I doubt the plane needs the full two-mile runway length. He may have taken off in the first mile and landed in the second mile.

Let the conspiracy theories begin....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Perhaps he flew only a hundred miles to the next airfield and then they just hoaxed it all on the www, ya know like how NASA "went to the moon".

Nice piccies of GF over the Atlas mountains? Photoshop.

You have to hand it to them. Cooking up that lost fuel scenario and the GPS outage scenario was a good way of grabbing some media attention. Nothing gets viewer % like the promise of a plain wreck and bodies (or only one body in this case). C'mon folks how do you "lose" 2600 pounds of fuel...

Re:Let the conspiracy theories begin....

[d474]

LOL. I wish I had mod points. +5 Funny!

Re:Not ALL the way around the Earth

[omahajim]

He took off on RWY 35, then landed on RWY 17 (watched the live Realvideo feed at takeoff, and CNN on landing). To me that says he passed over the same point in both directions, meeting your criteria. Notice that he taxied almost completely down to the far end of the runway after landing, before turning off to the taxiway. He used all but 4000 feet of the 13,500 runway on takeoff, so it seems to me he crossed the same point on takeoff and landing.

Saw It

[-=Zak=-]

Me and some co-workers drove up to see the landing. We didn't have VIP passes and couldn't get onto the tarmack, so we had to watch from behind the high barbed-wire-topped fences. There was a hanger blocking our view of the landing, but we did get to see the plane come to a stop. He didn't use even half of the runway!

Re:Not ALL the way around the Earth

[omahajim]

And I see your point now, about "flying" all the way around the world, not simply taxiing past the start point. But having taken off on 35 (heading N) and landing on 17 (heading south) it sounds like they did their howework to go east of the exact longitude they started from, or at least flew over that same point.

Around the world in 80 days? No longer...

[Money for Nothin']

Anybody remember the story of Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (or the more-recent Jackie Chan movie adaptation)? Admittedly, I don't b/c I never read it or saw the movie, but I'm looking at this from a historical context...

How long ago was it that getting around the world in 80 days was considered an incredible feat? 100 years ago? Given that people traveled by steamship, trains, and unreliable cars then (and only if one was rich, at that), roughly, yes.

And yet, here we are, with a person making a trip around the world not only in far less than 80 days, but in under 80 hours. In the time you spent doing a Stage 1 Gentoo install, Steve Fosset was able to fly around the entire planet.

Who, 100 years ago, would've likely believed it likely (possible, perhaps, but likely?)? :)

Not the first, but the fastest! RTFA

[omacs]

This flight wasn't the first non stop unfueled flight, but the fastest.

The first [centennialofflight.gov] was in 1987 and was another Burt Rutan built plane which took 9 days to do the trip!

Re:Not the first, but the fastest! RTFA

[travisbecker]

From the article (emphasis mine):

...becoming the first person to fly solo around the world without stopping or refuelling.

[snip]

In 1986, two people made history by accomplishing the same flight that Fossett made solo this week. They were Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan, the brother of the man who designed Fossett's GlobalFlyer, Burt Rutan.

So the orignal post is OK.

Travis

Re:Does anyone but aircraft buffs care anymore?

[omahajim]

but the general reaction I got from most everybody was that it really wasn't that newsworthy

Indeed for CNN, at least at the outset. The takeoff (or any of the pre-takeoff prep) was not broadcast live on mainstream CNN because they were debating BTK, missing nine year old girls, and Michael Jackson the entire day.

And I would have to say, the live commentary during the landing by CNN anchors was just short of nauseating. The constant blathering by the completely uninformed hosts was annoying... they couldn't find it in themselves to shut up and let the mission audio play by itself a-la NASA-TV. Had to turn the sound down.

To the lady anchor on this afternoon during the landing (don't remember her name): that "big red thing" above Steve's head was not the fuel tank - it was the engine.

Re:Does anyone but aircraft buffs care anymore?

[omahajim]

Sorry, I meant about the current GlobalFlyer flight, you were speaking of the newsworthiness of the balloon flight, but more or less the same applies regarding my comments on GlobalFlyer and CNN. Sheesh - not having a good day reading today.

Metric System

[kryocore]

Also FYI (37,000 km) / (67 hours) = 343.145285 mph

Why hasn't time been changed to the metric system? Is it cause the earth doesn't rotate at a rate divisible by ten?

Interesting to see his timesheet

[ross.w]

If he worked for a guy that I worked for once:

" I see you booked 67 hours to 'Round the world solo attempt'. So did you actually spend the whole 67 hours flying the plane?"

Sometimes I hate to wonder

[Shivetya]

You have to use a strawman argument to bring down the accomplishment of another? What in the HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Yes there are people living in misery. There will always be someone suffering. This does not mean we should not recognize that there are some people who will show us that there are goals worth risking ones life for. Goals that break free of the normal lives many of us lead. Perhaps one of those kids in a downtrodden environment will see this as something to aspire to? Do not say its impossible, we have a child of the segregated South where church bombings occured and where lynching was real who is now Secretary of State!

With your attitiude she should have just given up all hope and wallowed in despair.

Yes its unfortunate that not everyone is living a perfect life or at least a good life. Yet to take away dreams from these or people who are better off is far more damning.

Re:Them pesky angle brackets!

[Paradise Pete]

Any time.

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[d474]

That's bullshit someone modded YOU with Flamebait, but HE was the one that called you an "Idiot". Sometimes these modders are fucking retarded.

Anyway, his analogy from planes to balloons is a false one. The goofball needs it to be pointed out to him that planes have slightly more vector control that a balloon? Besides, solar powered high altitude aircraft HAVE actually been considered cheaper alternatives to many communications/surveillance satellites. I agree with your points.

Re:Two word explanation:

[d474]

Stable air in Kansas?

I'm just sayin'...

Next time without fuel

[imevil]

The Solar Impulse Project: a round-the-world trip on a solar powered airplane

http://www.solar-impulse.com/en/index.php
http://solar-impulse.epfl.ch/
http://iacs.epfl.ch/cmcs/Solar_Impulse.php3

Re:That's Awesome...but...

[tsotha]

You're overlooking the real value here, which was pretty much all accomplished before the aircraft left the ground. The materials science and engineering done to create an aircraft for this mission is the practical purpose. The actual flight was just to show that (1) it all worked, and (2) to provide the sponsors with incentive to foot the bill.

Excellent point, although the flight is a good way to keep hubris from creeping in. I mean, yes, it worked, but somebody's been burning the midnight oil to try to figure out where that extra fuel went.