DATE CHOSEN TO LAUNCH LONGEST-FLIGHT ATTEMPT.Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer MOJAVE - Adventurer Steve Fossett James Stephen Fossett (born April 22, 1944 - missing September 3, 2007) is an American aviator, sailor and adventurer. Fossett made his fortune in the financial services industry and is best known for many world records including five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a is planning to start his attempt for history's longest distance nonstop airplane flight Tuesday. In a mission update, Fossett said he plans to fly the Mojave-built GlobalFlyer sometime next week, with Tuesday looking like the best date. Weather permitting, Fossett plans to take off from Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral) U.S. launch site for manned space missions. [U.S. Hist.: WB, So:562] See : Astronautics in Florida for a flight that will cover about 26,000 miles and will last about 80 hours. ``With the wind forecast, (mission controller) Kevin Stass has found that February 7 will be a faster flight than February 8,'' Fossett said in the mission update. ``Unless a better day shows up in later forecasts, we plant to launch on February 7.'' The GlobalFlyer team hopes to break the distance records of 24,987 miles for the longest aircraft flight, set by the Voyager airplane in 1986, and the 25,361-mile mark set by the balloon Breitling Orbiter Breitling Orbiter was the name of three different Rozière Balloons made by Cameron Balloons to circumnavigate the globe. The first two balloons never made it, while the third made a successful attempt in 1999. 3 in 1999. During the longest-flight attempt, Fossett is expected to pilot the aircraft to altitudes of about 45,000 feet and at speeds faster than 285 mph. The flight path goes over Atlantic Ocean Atlantic Ocean [Lat.,=of Atlas], second largest ocean (c.31,800,000 sq mi/82,362,000 sq km; c.36,000,000 sq mi/93,240,000 sq km with marginal seas). Physical Geography Extent and Seas to Northern Africa, India, China, the Pacific Ocean, Mexico and then across the Atlantic Ocean Across the Atlantic Ocean is the twenty-eighth episode[1] of Mobile Suit Gundam. Plot summary Amuro and Sayla manage to reduce their time in docking the Gundam and the G-Fighter to fifteen seconds. a second time before ending in the United Kingdom. Last March, Fossett made history by piloting the GlobalFlyer on the first solo, nonstop flight around the world. That flight covered 20,373 miles. Burt Rutan Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943 in Estacada, Oregon) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. designed the GlobalFlyer, built by his Scaled Composites company in Mojave. Rutan also designed the Voyager aircraft. The aircraft's construction, the round-the-world flight last year and this record attempt have all been bankrolled by Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire who founded Virgin Atlantic airlines. Jim Skeen, (661) 267-5743 james.skeen(at)dailynews.com |
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