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February 8, 2006

Global Flyer Underway

Last year Virgin Atlantic assembled a team of individuals and technical power houses, including Scaled Composites, to perform the first solo, first jet-propelled, non-stop circumnavigation in history. Now they've upped the stakes and want to do it again, only at an even more impressive distance. Virgin Atlantic now intends to set a record by performing a non-stop, solo 26,000 mile journey. This is compared to last years 22,877 mile jaunt.

After fixing a fuel leakage problem that grounded a previous attempt, the team observed conditions acceptable to launch the Global Flyer from the Kennedy Space Centre at 7:22am local time. The aircraft is slightly past the mid-way point across the Atlantic Ocean on the first leg of the circumnavigation. Piloting the Global Flyer is Steve Fossett, who will forego sleep for up to 80 hours while flying the 26,000 mile minimum required for circumnavigating the world and holding the record for the longest solo flight ever.

Visit the Global Flyer Flight Tracker to view his current progress, updated every five minutes.

Also be sure and check out his live current and cumulative radiation dose via Solar Metrics.

Posted by Jesse Gunderson at February 8, 2006 10:11 AM

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