Fossett sets off on solo global flight

SALINA, Kan. - Steve Fossett, who sailed around the globe in a balloon three years ago, took off from a Kansas airfield yesterday trying to circle the Earth nonstop in a one-engine plane without refueling.

Fossett rolled down the runway at 12:45pm NZT from Salina Municipal Airport before about 200 people.

Among those on hand was Virgin Atlantic Airways chief Richard Branson who wants to send tourists into space. He is bankrolling the flight, has put his brand on the experimental aircraft and flew in a contingent of journalists aboard one of his airline's 747s to cover the event.

Fossett hopes to touch down back in Kansas in a little less than three days after covering 37,013km at altitudes of up to 52,000 feet and at an average speed of 462 km/h.

While he would be the first to make such a journey as a solo pilot, merely completing the trip would not set a record, according to the Paris-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan made the first nonstop, unrefueled global flight in 1986 in the propeller-driven Voyager with a nine-day circumnavigation covering 42,431 kms.

The federation said Fossett might qualify for a speed record depending on his time.

The Kansas site was chosen because it would allow the plane to be over land for the early and late stages of the flight that will require a deployment of drag balloons to slow the craft down and allow for a descent.

The Salina airport, once used for military bomber training, has one of the longest runways in North America - 12,300 feet - and is designated as an alternate landing spot for the Space Shuttle.

Fossett's craft consists of a 7-foot-long pressurized, cigar-shaped cabin suspended beneath a single Williams turbofan jet engine. The cabin is bracketed by two large outrigger-like booms farther out on the 114-foot wing holding the landing gear and fuel. At takeoff, the flight group said, fuel would take up 83 per cent of the aircraft's weight.

The plane, constructed of graphite-epoxy, was built by Scaled Composites, which last year won the US$10 million X-Prize for sending a reusable aircraft with a pilot into outer space twice in 10 days.

Fossett, 60, earned his fortune as a markets trader and has pursued a number of land, air and sea records. In July 2002, after a number of tries, he became the first person to circle the globe alone in a balloon.

- REUTERS