Global Flyer

Tues 7 Feb:   Fuel leak from overflow puts back take-off a day.
Weds 8:        1222 GMT Take-off uses 11,500' (3,500 m).
                     Bird-strike on take-off, cabin temp. reached 49° C.
                     2230 Approaching Canary Islands - jet-stream faster here.
Thurs 9         0930  Over Saudi Arabia at 360 kts
                     1430 Severe turbulence near Bhopal - put on parachute just in case.
                     1700 Chittagong, Bangladesh, back in the jet-stream again.
                     2330 Nearing SW coast of Japan at Nagasaki, at dawn.
Fri 10           0930 North of Hawaii; ETA 1800 at Baja Peninsula, Mexico.
                     1800 ETA south of Los Angeles 1830
                     2150 Over Texas, doing 300kts in the jet-stream again.
Sat 11          0300 Expected to be coasting out over the Atlantic Ocean.
                     1020 Decision to go on has been made.
                     1615 Passing overhead Shannon, Ireland.
                     1630 Begins descent - generator fails.
                     1635 Mayday call - diverts towards Bournemouth; emergency descent
                     1645 Overhead Bournemouth at 13,000' descending 1,000' per minute
                     1700 Successful emergency landing at Bournemouth.

Download Global Flyer for
Flight Sim 2002 or 2004

The final half-hour:

From a routine 41,000 feet over Cardiff at 16:19, Global Flyer surprised those following the flight when its smoothly curving descent flight path suddenly faltered at 31,000 feet over Newbury and dived off South towards Southampton. Losing around 1,400 feet per minute for the first few minutes, twice the normal descent rate for the plane, Steve headed for Bournemouth (Hurn) Airport, arriving overhead at 13,000 feet at 16:45 and circled while losing height and preparing for the approach and landing. He had little forward visibility as the ice which had formed on the windscreen had not had time to melt in the lower altitudes. His landing at 17:00 on Runway 26 shortly before sunset resulted in the main-wheel tyres bursting but the plane and Steve were safely down after the record-breaking flight. He had just 200 lbs of fuel left, not much more than 1% of what he started with almost 77hrs before.

Richard Branson, his main sponsor, had been flying nearby in Steve Fossett's executive jet, having made a rendezvous at Shannon, so was able to follow Steve into Hurn and collect him to fly together to the reception planned at Manston, Kent.

Many congratulations to Steve Fossett from PFA Education, and thanks for an epic flight that is such a good example to our emergent Young Aviators.

Check the website at www.globalflyer.com for details, more maps, flight plan and background information.

Look at the Jet-streams at http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html to see how they affect his planned route.
The Northern Hemisphere map is at http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_norhem_00.gif and is updated every 6 hours.
Archives as far back as 2003 can be found at http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/archive/jetstream_archive.html .

Download Global Flyer for Flight Sim 2002 or 2004 from http://www.theheavenlyhangar.com/READMORE/GLOBFLYER/index.htm

Further Global Flyer technical information is at http://www.aahs-online.org/articles/globalflyer.htm

Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer:

The empty aircraft weighs 1.5 tonnes, about the same as a large family car.
Full of fuel it weighs about 10 tonnes.
It is made mostly of carbon fibre and epoxy resin.
The skin has a honeycomb structure for strength and lightness.
It is about the length of a London bus, and the wingspan is as long as 3 London buses.
It is powered by one turbo-fan engine of 2,300 lb st. thrust.
The plane averages about 10 miles per gallon at 200mph.
It cruises at around 45,000 feet (about 14,000 metres).
It glides so well without power, about 37 metres distance for every metre it sinks, that it needs drag parachutes to slow down for landing.

Steve Fossett:

Born on April 22nd 1944 in Jackson, Tennessee, USA.
Gained the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award as a youth.
Has taken over 100 world records, in activities including ballooning, sailing, gliding and powered flight, both in airplanes and a Zeppelin airship.
Flew with co-pilot Mark Reboltz in the Vickers Vimy bi-plane bomber replica in 2005 to re-enact the first non-stop Atlantic crossing by Alcock and Brown in 1919.

Steve Fossett disappeared on a flight in the Sierra Nevada mountains on 3 Sept 2007. He was never found, but fragments of his bones were found at the end of September 2008.

http://www.stevefossett.com