Big 12 World Record

[Jimi]

Steve Fossett is now airborne and flying over Libya. He took of at 6:47 last night from Salina Kansas. He is alone in a single engine jet built by Dick Rutan and financed by Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airways. The main record to be set is the first round the world flight in an aircraft without refueling. Yep, he plans to land in Salina Kansas around midday on Thursday. If he makes that schedule a lot of other records will fall also. The most dangerous part of the flight was the take off. He still has to do a few small things such as fly the thing for 66 straight hours. After some initial problems with the on board GPS system things are going well and he is burning about 1/2 percent less fuel than predicted.

The Big 12 connection? Mission Control and much of the flight support is being provided by KSU and its aviation program at Salina. There are KSU aviation students manning mission control and handeling tracking and logistical duties as well as staying in touch with Fossett 24 hours a day.

Its hard to keep those B-12 students down. ;)

You can track the flight at www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com :ksu:

[Jimi]

Btw, I will be in Salina Thursday but I will be in meetings at Salina Regional Hospital all morning until 1pm so if Fossett can manage to be slow enough to come back after about 1:30 I may get to see him land. :)

[Jimi]

Globalflyer is now south of Cairo Egypt and will soon cross the border to fly over Saudia Arabia. Wave to the thing Yemenbear. You will have to wave real hard for him to see you. He is at almost 50,000 feet. :cool:

[Jimi]

Currently over the Indian Ocean headed for India. All is well.

[Jimi]

Now over central India

[Jimi]

Steve is now over the South China sea near Japan. He crossed India and China during the night. He is now just over half way.

[Jimi]

Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer is now past Japan and over the ocean headed toward the Hawian islands. There is now serious concern over fuel loss in the early hours of the flight. If Steve gets enough tail winds completion of the flight is still possible but there is lots of concern now.

[swok34]

Mission Status: Steve says "Let's go for it!"

[QuePsiPhi4NU]

US Coastline crossed

:p

[QuePsiPhi4NU]

19:50UTC - 13:50 local time - Steve has just touched down at Salina after successfully completing the fastest, non-stop, non-refuelled flight around the world.

The whole team, including the web team are off to meet Steve to congratulate him right now. We'll get back to you with all the news, pictures and reactions later this evening.

Well done Steve! And thanks to you all for being such avid watchers on this site!

[Jimi]

Yes! And as an extra cool thing for me, I got to see the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer land. A friend from Abilene and I were right alongside the north part of the runway. Fossett was maybe 10 feet off the ground when he went by us. That little jet engine was so quiet we could not even hear it over the crowd, and yes it was still running. It is a very pretty little plane. Despite its rather large wingspan it is so thin that it was hard to see in the sky until the last mile out. It was a very nice and patient crowd. At first the plane was expected to come in from the north. Then it was announced that the wind had changed enough that it would come in from the south. BUMMER! we all started to move south. Btw Salina's runway is around 2 MILES long. The fire/rescue truck started up and headed down the the runway to the south. The media busses fired up and were starting to load. Then word came that no, he would land north to south as origionally planned. Here comes the big diesel fire truck roaring back up the runway and the media busses shut back down and stayed where they were. :)

I took some pictures with my digital camera but I haven't looked at them yet and have no idea if I have any good shots or not. The bright sun wiped out my view finder so I could not see if I was set up well or not.