Did He Break The Record?

Adventurer Steve Fossett (right) landed in Salina, KS Friday morning at 9:06 am Central Standard Time, after a remarkably by-the-book attempt to establish a new record for distance travelled nonstop in a closed course. Stronger-than-expected tailwinds moved up the anticipated landing time from its original target of Friday afternoon.

Officials are now checking instruments to see if Fossett successfully broke the 24,931-mile record, established in 1986 by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager in Voyager. A post on the Kansas State University-Salina GlobalFlyer blogsite quotes the official distance travelled as 21,979.8 nautical miles -- or 25,293.9 standard miles, which would be enough for the record.

As Aero-News reported throughout Fossett's latest record attempt, this flight will likely go down as the smoothest of Fossett's three record-attempt flights in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. Fuel woes and technical issues that caused tense moments during Fossett's solo around-the-world flight last year, as well as the Ultimate Flight long-distance record flight in February, were nonissues this time around.

Think You Can Do It Better?

It's no secret that Fossett has become quite adept at piloting the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer -- putting nearly 100,000 miles under your belt in the same airplane, in just over a year, will do that, after all. Alas, it's likely the GlobalFlyer's next stop will be a museum... unless Fossett can think of another record to break in the plane.

That doesn't mean the GlobalFlyer won't keep "flying", though -- and what's more, YOU can take it for a round-the-world spin yourself... as long as you have Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 or FS2004. The Globalflyer team -- with help from the established sim doctors at Aeroplane Heaven -- created a desktop simulator version of the aircraft that is available for free download... and you can try it for yourself here.

Incidentally, as Fossett was circling the globe for yet a third time in the GlobalFlyer this week, Kansas State - Salina flight instructor Brad Amstutz was duplicating the flight point-by-point on the simulator... and after a successful flight, he "landed" about 20 minutes before the actual GlobalFlyer.

FMI: www.salina.k-state.edu/globalflyer/, http://globalflyer2.blogspot.com/