As if dodging three days of near catastrophe weren’t enough, millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett had a total power failure in the waning moments of his globe-circling voyage Saturday, but made an emergency landing and coasted to a stop on two burst tires to complete the longest nonstop flight in history.
“If we didn’t get him down in 15 minutes, he would have had to ditch the plane,” Virgin Atlantic executive Steve Ridgeway said in a Web site statement shortly after Fossett’s Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer landed in Bournemouth, England at 9:07 a.m. PST.
“I was really lucky to make it here today, there was a lot going on,” Fossett told reporters after he landed. “The tension of the final part really took it out of me, but I will be fine in the morning.”
The flight, which began at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 7:22 a.m. EST Wednesday, lasted 76 hours 45 minutes and covered 26,389.3 miles, the Global Flyer Web site said. That’s more than 1,000 miles farther than the flight of the Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon in 1999.
Fossett also eclipsed the airplane distance record set by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager in Voyager, which made the first unrefueled circumnavigation of the globe in 1986, and which, like Global Flyer, was built by Dick’s brother, aircraft innovator Burt Rutan of Mojave, Calif.
“Dick made the point in 1986 that it would be good for someone to come out and beat the record, and he’s delighted to give it up,” Burt Rutan said in a telephone interview.
Saturday’s finale was anything but routine. Virgin Atlantic said Fossett had just finished talking on his cell phone to Virgin Atlantic Chairman Richard Branson, who had congratulated him on the distance record – accomplished as Global Flyer flew over Shannon, Ireland.
“He’s feeling really good and confident,” Branson told mission control, the Web site said.
Moments later, and just a few miles from Fossett’s scheduled landing at Kent International Airport south of London, Global Flyer’s generator failed, causing a complete loss of power, the Web site said. Fossett made an emergency call to Bournemouth and got clearance to land.
Besides the blowouts, GlobalFlyer’s windshield was so badly iced up that Fossett could barely see out, and engineers found the plane only had 200 pounds of fuel remaining of its initial 18,000 pound-load.
Global Flyer has a 114-foot wingspan – comparable to a Boeing 737 – and looks like a trimaran, with 13 gas tanks, three fuselages, a minuscule cockpit and a single jet engine atop the plane. Empty, Global Flyer weighs a wispy 3,000 pounds.
“As it gets lighter, you have to slow down,” Rutan said. “The most efficient speed gets slower and slower, and as you continue you have to fly higher and higher, just as long as you have enough air.”
Fossett’s solo flight last year was marred by the loss of 2,800 pounds of fuel during the initial ascent, prompting fears he would not be able to complete the circumnavigation. But when he finished with plenty of fuel left, engineers suspected that a leak-free Global Flyer could fly much farther.
“We identified what we thought was (last year’s) problem and put in a plumbing fix,” Rutan said.
But once again, Global Flyer lost fuel on the ascent – about 750 pounds between 35,000 and 40,000 feet. “We helped a lot,” Rutan said, “but unfortunately we didn’t fix it.”
Rutan said during the flight that the fuel loss made Fossett’s chances for success “questionable for sure.” Flight controllers calculated that the loss virtually wiped out what they expected to be a margin of 500 to 1,000 pounds of fuel that Fossett had counted on for emergencies.
In addition to the fuel loss, Fossett hit two birds on the ascent and reported ventilation problems early in the flight. The hard-working engine caused temperatures in the cockpit to stay above 105 degrees for eight hours and rise as high as 130 degrees.
Mission control south of London said Fossett was forced to drink a “significant amount” of his 10-quart water supply before GlobalFlyer had used enough fuel to allow the engine to slack off.
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