"RECORD SEEKERS - Sir Richard Branson, left, chairman of Virgin Atlantic, famed aviation designer Burt Rutan, center, and pilot Steve Fossett gather at the unveiling of GlobalFlyer on Thursday morning in Mojave. ROB LAYMAN/Valley Press
Posted on 01/09/2004 8:08:00 PM PST by BenLurkin
With lights, music and smoke befitting a rock concert, legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan's latest creation rolled out in view of a global media throng Thursday. The star of this show was a noble steed commissioned by an entrepreneurial British knight for a venture drawing comparison to Charles Lindbergh's "lone eagle" solo flight to Paris.
The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer is designed to take on what Virgin Chairman Sir Richard Branson calls the "last great aviation record on Earth" - a solo, nonrefueled flight around the world.
The historic attempt, expected later this year, will be piloted by Steve Fossett, who already holds several aviation records, including the first solo, around-the-world balloon flight.
Branson, also a record setter, is the backup pilot if Fossett cannot make the mission for any reason. The two previously teamed in an attempt at around-the-world balloon flight.
"This is really exciting for me," Fossett said. "Not only exciting from a piloting achievement standpoint, but also as an achievement of airplane technology."
GlobalFlyer emerged from a hangar at Rutan's Scaled Composites facility at the Mojave Airport.
Aviation enthusiasts, including former test pilot Bob Hoover and hotelier Barron Hilton, showed up to watch the spectacle, featuring an eerie craft shrouded by a crimson cloud of dry ice.
Following the dramatic unveiling inside a darkened hangar, the aircraft was rolled outside into the crisp desert air, where it and the three men responsible for its creation greeted the cameras. The intrepid trio capped the ceremony by christening the aircraft with champagne.
Branson is well known for the record-attempting feats he often has mounted, in part to publicize his nearly 20-year-old company, the upstart airline that challenged British Airways' posh and staid comforts with personal movie systems, airport limousine rides and cheaper fares.
Bearing the familiar Virgin Atlantic Airways' logo on its red twin tails, the GlobalFlyer, like its predecessor, Voyager, is essentially a flying fuel tank. The 21st-century craft carries 82% of its weight in fuel on takeoff. No accommodations for passengers or personal movie systems are provided on this Virgin aircraft.
The GlobalFlyer bears more than a passing resemblance to Rutan's previous trans-global record-setter, the Voyager, the first aircraft to circle the globe without refueling. The Voyager occupies display space in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.
Rutan said the new plane was the result of 14 months' work by a small team at his Scaled Composites company in Mojave. With the confidence he is known for, he declared GlobalFlyer "probably the most beautiful airplane in the world."
Like the Voyager, GlobalFlyer is built of composite materials, features a center crew cabin and two large booms joined by an immense wing span. In 1986, Voyager used a twin-prop engine for propulsion. GlobalFlyer features a single jet engine mounted atop the pressurized crew cabin.
Like most historic attempts, this around-the-world exploit poses hazards for those who dare.
"You're pushing the boundaries in attempting something like this," Branson said.
The biggest risks during the flight will be take-off and landing, he said.
Take-off is dangerous, because the full fuel load will put the aircraft at the maximum tolerance of the design. GlobalFlyer will require a long runway - 12,000 feet - for take-off.
Landing is perhaps even more risky, Rutan said, because the aircraft, minus its load of fuel, may be easily buffeted by crosswinds and will be under control of a weary lone pilot.
The aircraft uses twin drogue chutes mounted on either side of the crew cabin to slow the aircraft for landing. Without them, the super-efficient aircraft would be unable to slow itself enough to land, Rutan said.
The chutes also would be deployed in case of an emergency. Because the GlobalFlyer is designed to fly at 45,000 to 55,000 feet, it must descend in order for the pilot to bail out.
Fossett, or back-up pilot Branson, will be equipped with a parachute with an attached life raft for water landings and an emergency satellite beacon to guide rescuers to his position in case he is forced to abandon the flight.
While the single Williams jet engine is considered reliable, "this will be a test," Fossett said.
Although specially designed for this aircraft, the engine is similar to those found on business jets and is not considered experimental, Rutan said.
In order to make the solo flight possible, the aircraft is equipped with a digital autopilot.
"To hand-fly for 80 hours would be unimaginable," Fossett said.
Branson compared the attempt to Lindbergh's historic solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1927. Landing before a crowd of thousands on the airfield outside Paris, Lindbergh quickly became known to the world as "the lone eagle."
Noting that a pair of pilots had made the same flight prior to Lindbergh, Fossett said, "It's often the solo records that get remembered."
The record attempt started five years ago with the suggestion of the current nonrefueled, trans-global record-holder, Dick Rutan. At a gathering whose host was Barron Hilton , Rutan mentioned to Fossett that his brother had an idea for an aircraft which could make the trip faster and with a single pilot. Fossett asked for an introduction to Burt, and the project took off.
Seventeen years ago, Rutan and Jeana Yeager piloted the Voyager aircraft - also designed by his brother Burt - into the record books as the first nonrefueled trans-global flight.
Much like the Voyager project, GlobalFlyer began with a simple, casual comment around a dinner table, when Fossett posed the question of just what records were left to conquer, Dick Rutan recalled.
"I'd have done it (myself) in a heartbeat if I could've got it funded," the principal Voyager pilot said.
However, Dick Rutan is anything but disappointed by the possibility of seeing his record fall.
"It's great," he said. "The only thing I'm disappointed about is it took 20 years. It should've been done sooner."
The Voyager set the existing world speed record by flying around the world in just more than nine days.
The GlobalFlyer, using a single jet engine, aided by the winds of the jet stream and flying above the weather problems that plagued the Voyager, is expected to make the trip in 80 hours. This is due to GlobalFlyer's greater speed capability of more than 250 knots (288 mph), compared to Voyager's roughly 100 knots (115 mph).
The attempt depends on using the speedy winds of the jet stream to have enough speed to complete the journey.
For its record-setting flight, GlobalFlyer will take off from an airfield in the central United States and use the winds of the jet stream to aid its Atlantic crossing to the United Kingdom. From there, the route is south to the Mediterranean and through the Persian Gulf to Pakistan, India, China and Japan. It then will cross the Pacific to return to the starting point.
Flight testing for the new aircraft is expected to begin in about a month in Mojave, and the aircraft could be ready for the record attempt as soon as April, although October is a more likely time frame, Fossett said. The weather conditions for using the winds of the jet stream are more favorable in the fall.
The new aircraft draws on the knowledge and experience gained in the nearly 20 years since the Voyager was built.
Advances in materials helped increase the takeoff weight in fuel from 73% for the Voyager to GlobalFlyer's 82%, an "enormous increase," Burt Rutan said.
"No airliner comes anywhere close to that," he said. "This is by far a record."
Lighter avionics and propulsion systems, plus having only one pilot, helped make the aircraft lighter, as did a one-piece wingspan, he said.
The aircraft's super-efficient aerodynamic design is similar to that of a competition sailplane.
Altogether, the advancements "allow something we thought impossible 20 years ago," he said.
Unlike the grass-roots, volunteer effort of the Voyager, the GlobalFlyer is backed by the corporate might of Branson and Virgin Atlantic. Scaled Composites designed and built the aircraft under contract with Virgin Atlantic.
Branson would not specify the project's cost, but said it was "a couple million dollars."
Rutan saluted Branson's "vision, courage and support that is so critical to allow milestones and breakthroughs to occur."
"These things never come from governments … they come from people like you," Rutan said. "Without your support, these things don't happen. I applaud you for that."
The lightweight yet strong composite materials like those used on GlobalFlyer one day may be used to make commercial airliners more efficient and environmentally friendly, Branson said.
"It's projects like this that lead to projects like that," he said.
However, such evolution in the commercial world will take decades, and "may not even happen in my lifetime," Rutan said.
"It will take decades, but eventually airlines will get that efficient," he said.
"RECORD SEEKERS - Sir Richard Branson, left, chairman of Virgin Atlantic, famed aviation designer Burt Rutan, center, and pilot Steve Fossett gather at the unveiling of GlobalFlyer on Thursday morning in Mojave. ROB LAYMAN/Valley Press
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How come EVERYBODY Or mail checks to or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com |
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I've worked a little with the guys at Scaled. Good guys...
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