DESIGNER'S PLAN FOR JET TAKES OFF.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

MOJAVE - Seventeen years after a plane he designed flew around the world without refueling, aircraft designer Burt Rutan is building a new globe-circling craft.

This one is a jet financed by Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson for the first solo nonstop around-the-world flight, with either adventurer Steve Fossett or Branson at the controls.

``Flying around the world has always been a great romance and adventure,'' Fossett said in a statement announcing the project. ``If successful I hope to earn a place in aviation history in the legacy of Wiley Post, who was first to fly around the world solo. In July 1933, Post made it around with eleven stops and in under eight days. I hope to make it with no stops and in under 80 hours.''

Branson will be the reserve pilot on the project and will make the attempt if Fossett is unable to fly.

``Flying an aircraft solo around the world without stopping or refueling is the last great aviation record left inside the Earth's atmosphere,'' Branson said in the announcement. ``The manufacturers of the plane and the engine will generate unique data on improving future aircraft efficiency, which will help develop a new generation of more fuel-efficient commercial aircraft.''

Rutan, whose Scaled Composites aircraft factory is in Mojave, designed and built the Voyager, a plane that his brother and a co-pilot flew around the world nonstop in 1986 in nine days.

The new craft is dubbed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. Fossett, whose adventures include being the first to fly a balloon around the world, plans to make the solo attempt next year.

An artist's concept of the airplane shows a design somewhat similar to Voyager's - a cockpit mounted on the wing between twin booms. Unlike the twin engine, propeller-driven Voyager, the GlobalFlyer will have one jet engine.

The airplane is expected to be able to fly at about 285 mph and will be able to reach 52,000 feet - about half the speed but three miles higher than jetliners fly.

Flight testing of the airplane is expected to begin in December and will run through March.

At the start of the flight the plane will weigh 22,006 pounds, with the fuel weight causing the airplane's wings to sag. At the end of the flight, the airplane will weigh under 4,000 pounds.

The flight will follow rules laid out by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, which governs aviation records. 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, the project team said.

What's more, the course must not be less than the very precise figure of 36,787.559 kilometers, approximately 23,000 miles, which is equal in length to the Tropic of Cancer, the project team said.

Unlike Voyager, which took off and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, GlobalFlyer's flight will begin and end at an airfield somewhere in the Midwest. The plane will follow jet stream winds across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom, then head southeast across the Mediterranean and then east toward Pakistan, India, China and Japan. The final leg of the journey will take the plane out over the Pacific toward Hawaii before crossing the west coast of the United States.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com

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(ran in AV edition only) The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, being built by Burt Rutan, will be piloted by either Steve Fossett or Richard Branson when it sets out on its record-setting mission.