>>> Aviator Steve Fossett's new venture
by Derek Yeo


STEVE Fossett, aviator-adventurer extraordinaire, today stands poised on another aviation record-breaking attempt.

At 0642 hours Florida time, he takes off from Kennedy Space Center to break his own record-setting flight and two others. And he looks set to create aviation history yet again.

In March 2005, Steve became the first person to fly non-stop - sans air-to-air refuelling - and solo around the world. And the longest: a record 67 hours in the experimental Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer aircraft. Though he lost more than 3,000 lb of fuel due to a leak, he managed to recover and landed with 1,500 lb in reserve. Fossett claimed that if not for the leak, VAGF would have flown farther and longer. He stressed, "We have designed this flight to use the full capability of this airplane, to fly further than any plane has ever flown."

VAGF - powered by a William turbo-jet mounted on a graphite-epoxy airframe - measures 114 feet from wing tip to wing tip.

If successful, Fossett’s next journey, at 43,462 km, will erase the 1986 record – 40,204 km – set by Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager in the airplane, `Voyager’. It would erase too, the 1999 record – 40,805 km – held by balloon, `Breitling Orbiter 3’.

Fossett’s east-bound flight will take him from Kennedy Space Center to circumnavigate the globe, then a repeat crossing of the Atlantic Ocean before touchdown near London.

The epic voyage in the spindly VAGF poses a number of challenges: the risk of lugging thousands of gallons of ignitable fuel on board the ultra-light craft; an unpredictable weather and the possibility of fuel depletion.

On Monday 6 Feb, in a press briefing with Virgin Atlantic’s head Richard Branson at his side, Fossett conceded that the bid “will be very close.”