SALINA, Kan., Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Adventurer Steve Fossett has been cleared to leave Kansas on a solo attempt to fly non-stop around the earth in an experimental three-hulled aircraft.
Fossett, a 60-year-old former Chicago investor who successfully circled the globe solo in a balloon in 2002, calls the planned three-day flight the world's "last great aviation record."
He hopes get the light-weight, single-jet-engine Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer off the ground at Salina Municipal Airport Monday afternoon and ride jet stream winds across the Atlantic before heading southeast toward Africa, sweeping over Pakistan, India, China and Japan across the Pacific and landing back in Kansas.
The entire circumnavigation would set a record of more than 22,858 miles non-stop.
The Global Flyer has never been tested carrying a full load of fuel, four times the weight the experimental aircraft, making take-off extremely hazardous.
The project is partly funded by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin company.
