First Solo Nonstop Circumnavigation
In January, 2005, following solo test flights at Mojave, California by Chief Engineer Jon Karkow and pilot Steve Fossett, Fossett moved the GlobalFlyer to the Salina Municipal Airport in Salina, Kansas, where a recently resurfaced runway of 12,300 feet (3750 m) would accommodate the anticipated long takeoff roll. The round the world attempt was delayed until 28 February 2005 to obtain a weather forecast with low turbulence for the fragile GlobalFlyer and good tailwinds.
Mission Control was at the Salina campus of Kansas State University, located adjacent to the Salina Municipal Airport.
A tailwind was essential to making the 36,787.559 km that it needed to fly to meet the FAI’s definition of circumnavigation, the length of the Tropic of Cancer. The GlobalFlyer was designed to complete the circumnavigation with minimal reserves of fuel. As it turned out, a design flaw in the fuel venting system resulted in the loss of about 1,200 kg (2,600 lb) of fuel early in the flight. This forced Steve Fossett and Mission Control to decide whether to abort the flight as it reached the Pacific Ocean near Japan. Steve Fossett chose to delay the final decision until he reached Hawaii. By that time, favorable winds encouraged the mission team to attempt to complete the circumnavigation.
Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer landed at Salina at 19:50 UTC (13:50 CST) on 3 March 2005, having completed its circumnavigation in 2 days, 19 hours, 1 minute and 46 seconds. The distance flown was determined to be 36,912 km, only 125 km above the minimum distance required.
Read more about this topic: Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer
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