[presidio9]

[MineralMan]

Cool! I hope they make it.

[ZGuy]

Ping

[roaddog727]

Ok.

70 Hours.

Snug in a coffin.

Question: How do you evacuate it when you have to take a dump?

[Conspiracy Guy]

I like to get out and stretch after 2 or 3 hours.

[investigateworld]

ping

[frithguild]

Stretched out P-38

[daviddennis]

I guess Virgin CEO Richard Branson's years of derring-do are over.

If my memory serves, Steve Fossett was his biggest rival in the hot air balloon world, and now they're teaming together on this one.

It looks more like a balsa wood glider than anything else!

I wish him the best of good fortune in his flight.

D

[Dan Middleton]

"Technicians at Scaled Composites, the company that built the plane, like to call it the Flying Fuel Tank."

People have applied similar monikers to the Spirit of St. Louis.

[ChadGore]

Cool ping

[mcshot]

Mr. Rutan seems to be an aviation giant with things to do and build. I'm glad I'm around to see his creative efforts take to the sky.
mc

[RatSlayer]

At the risk of being a spoil sport, it seems to me that it would be pretty easy to do a solo, around the world, unrefueled flight by taking a 747, stripping out all the seats and adding additional fuel tanks in the cargo hold and the passenger compartment.

You'd probably have to overload it a bit and the takeoff would be a little hairy, but that also seems to be the case with Rutan's design.

[narby]

"No one's willing to sleep with the autopilot yet."

They need to talk with Chuck Yeager and Bob Hoover. When those two were working on the X1 project, they would fly all night to have long weekends back home (In NC, I think).

They flew in Cessna "Bamboo Bombers", and would engage the autopilot and lay down in the center isle of the airplane and take "naps". They took a windup alarm clock to wake them up every 15-30 minutes so they could make sure they were on course.

[narby]

But mission planners are leaning toward an old air base in Salina, Kan., with a suitably long runway

I landed there a few months ago. I aimed about mid-field for a turn to downwind, and on downwind I thought I never would get to the numbers. I didn't really realize until after I landed how big the runway was. 15000 feet or so.

Waiting to takeoff, busness jets were taking off from midfield rather than taxi to the end. I was taught to NEVER take off from midfield, just because "you never know". But with 3 miles of runway, why not?

[azhenfud]

"...wonder how a pilot could function for 70 hours in a cigar-shaped cabin so snug he cannot even get out of his seat."

Depends.

[jordan8]

But he will need more than skill.

Like an amphetamine the size of a golf ball. Recently I read an article on sleep that talked about a drug that keeps you awake without the speed-like side effects.

22,859 / 70 = 326.56 mph. Probably the reason for the jet, though a turboprop would be more fuel efficient.

[Travis McGee]

The man is a force of nature. He set out to smash every significant sailing record, and he did. Ditto ballooning.

[LibertarianInExile]

It's a P-38 with a jet! What a great idea, taking the most solid plane ever built as a base and improving it! I want one!

[neverdem]

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.