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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."
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.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
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. :)
Clean coal harnesses the awesome power of the word 'clean'.
Really!
Also FYI (37,000 km) / (67 hours) = 343.145285 mph ... pretty darn fast considering they were expecting an average of 285mph.
Who gives a flying F***!!!? ;-)
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.
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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
it will be the best kazoo money can buy...
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
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?
Wasn't Yuri Gagarin "the first person to successfully circle the earth in a nonstop solo flight" in Vostok 1, back in '61? Hyuk.
"Mother, should I run for President? Mother, should I trust the government?"
The only difference between Steve Fosset and myself is millions upon millions of dollars.
/. is just as honorable.
Yeah, that and talent, vision, courage, ability, funding, support, drive, goals, and...well...a record.
But don't worry, trolling on
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.
"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...
Tweet, tweet.
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
And his luggage will arrive next week -- at the latest!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Publicity for the same rich guy, in fact. Branson put up all the cash for this little excursion.
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?
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
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.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
We can debate whether Fosset deserves praise, but I think it's pretty clear that it's a huge accomplishment for Burt Rutan.
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.
Need a simple, easy to use data tier generator? http://www.gryphinsoftware.com/
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.
Mr. Fossett has just set another record for the longest time spent standing in front of a urinal.
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.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
Idiot.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
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...
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.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
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.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
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.
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.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
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.
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
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
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.
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
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!
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
Accordiong to the Live Tracking site he's no longer moving...
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 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. . .
"I worked hard for it. I deserve it. And I have it," Campbell said. "It's all mine."
they're smaller, so more... 80 Canadian hours = approx 67 Regular hours.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
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.
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
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Since he did not break any record.
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
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
"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.
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
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.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
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.
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."
4 .p df
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_200
--Carlos V.
--Carlos V.