Feb 11 2006
From The Space Library
Adventurer J. Stephen Fossett broke the world’s record for the longest nonstop flight in history. Virgin Atlantic’s founder Richard Branson had financed the flight. Fossett had flown the lightweight Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, taking off from KSC in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 9 February, and heading east. After circumnavigating the globe, Fossett had planned to cross the Atlantic a second time and to land at Kent International Airport outside London, thus breaking the world’s record for the longest flight made by any aircraft. This achievement would have surpassed both the airplane distance record that Richard A. Rutan and Jeana Yeager had set in 1986, flying the Voyager aircraft, and the balloon distance record that the Breitling Orbiter 3 had set in 1999. However, Fossett had encountered several difficulties and had to make an emergency landing in Bournemouth, England, when his generator failed only a few miles shy of his intended destination. Fossett had completed his record-setting 26,389-mile (42,689-kilometer) journey in 76 hours and 45 minutes. Fossett’s flight also marked the first time that a privately built experimental aircraft had taken off from a Cape Canaveral runway.
NASA, “GlobalFlyer Departs From NASA's Kennedy Shuttle Runway,” news release 06-059, 8 February 2006, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/feb/HQ_06058_Global_Flyer.html (accessed 27 August 2010); Guy Gugliotta, “Fossett Sets Flight Distance Record,” Washington Post, 12 February 2006; Associated Press, “Fossett Takes Off Seeking New Record,” 9 February 2006.
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