Steve Fossett piloted his Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer aircraft over Saudi Arabia on Thursday, after a ”bit scary” takeoff on his solo bid to set a world record for the longest flight.
The 61-year-old United States aviator continued steadily eastward across northern Africa on his estimated 80-hour flight after hitting two birds during takeoff on Wednesday from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
He plans to fly around the world once and then make a second Atlantic crossing to finish at Kent, southeast England, covering a record 41 ,978km.
Overnight, the GlobalFlyer flew over North Africa at 340 knots (630kph) over Algeria, before crossing Saudi Arabia where at 8.30am GMT it was doing 326 knots at 14 102m.
The journey began on Wednesday when Fossett took off in Florida a day after high winds aborted the original launch.
Three hours over the North Atlantic Ocean, Fossett said in a telephone call that his takeoff was ”particularly hairy”.
”Takeoff was a bit scary, to say the least,” he said. ”I had to use most of the runway to get off the ground … I couldn’t have aborted even if I had wanted to. To make matters worse, two birds hit the aircraft on takeoff.”
Fossett said the difficult ascent pushed temperatures in the aircraft to 54°C, knocking out the plane’s instruments.
But later the cabin cooled down, and Fossett said he was ”settling in to enjoy the view”.
Jon Karkow, chief engineer for the flight, said the aircraft was in good shape and there was no evidence that the long takeoff or the birds had caused any damage.
There were tense moments initially as the fuel-laden aircraft needed 3 352m of runway to get off the ground.
Richard Branson, the billionaire British entrepreneur and founder of Virgin Atlantic airlines, who is backing Fossett’s bid, was optimistic, putting his friend’s record-breaking chances at ”50/50”.
Karkow expressed concern about the jetstream tailwinds which, while strong from Africa through to the Middle East and over China, weaken over Hawaii and the Pacific Ocean.
Staff at mission control in Crawley, south of London, will monitor Fossett’s progress, in particular whether he has enough fuel to go the distance.
The flight is the second time he has made an attempt at the record.
Last March, he landed in Kansas after flying around the globe solo for 67 hours, two minutes and 38 seconds without stopping or refuelling in a trip spanning 36 989km.
His newest adventure would take him 1 126km further than the 1999 around-the-world balloon trip by Brian Jones, a Briton, and his Swiss partner Bertrand Piccard on the Breitling Orbiter III.
If everything goes according to plan, Fossett will also beat the distance record set by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager in their nine-day, non-stop trip around the world without refuelling aboard the Voyager aircraft in 1986. That trip logged a total of 40 212km.
Fossett plans to fly over Saudi Arabia, India, China and southeastern Japan before traversing the Pacific and reaching Mexico, after which he will recross the Atlantic on the flight’s last leg.
Thrill-seeking Fossett, who has set records in sailboats, gliders and hot air balloons, has said that this latest feat ”will take me to the very edge of my ability and endurance”.
The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer was designed by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, creator of SpaceShipOne, the first private manned rocketship to go into space in 2004. Rutan also designed the Voyager flown by his brother Dick in 1986.
The special aircraft is 13,4m long and has a wing span of 34,7m. It weighs a total of 9,98 tonnes, including eight tonnes of fuel. The cockpit is equipped with an alert system to rouse the pilot if he falls asleep. – AFP
