Posted on 02/10/2006 6:21:51 PM PST by oxcart
Adventurer Steve Fossett on Friday altered his route over the Atlantic Ocean to make up for lost fuel and weak winds in his quest to break aviation's distance record.
Fossett originally planned to fly his lightweight experimental plane on a northeasterly path across the Atlantic that would allow Newfoundland to serve as an emergency landing site.
But the adjusted path has Fossett crossing Florida, where he began his nonstop trip early Wednesday, and taking a more southerly path on the flight's last leg to take advantage of better winds. He planned to land Saturday in Kent, England.
"The guys at mission control are looking at every available jet stream to pick the best speed across the Atlantic possible," Fossett, 61, said in a statement released by his flight team.
Fossett was expected to make a crucial decision Friday night as he flew over Florida about whether to continue with his nearly 27,000-mile trip or abort. Once over the ocean, there will be little opportunity to land the plane if he runs out of fuel.
Winds were expected to be weak across the Atlantic, and Fossett lost about 750 pounds of fuel because of a leak during takeoff from the Kennedy Space Center, leaving no margin for error.
"Fuel, winds, weather ... maybe his physical state, how he's feeling. There are a lot of things to consider," said Brooke Lawer, a spokeswoman for his flight team in England. "There's a lot to consider that probably are intangibles we wouldn't understand unless we were in the plane."
Fossett entered North American air space Friday over Mexico's Baja peninsula and soared over New Mexico and Texas, reaching a height of 51,000 feet.
The voyage would break the airplane distance record of 24,987 miles set in 1986 by the lightweight Voyager aircraft piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager, as well as the balloon record of 25,361 miles set by Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard in 1999.
On the Net:
http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
(((PING)))
If I had one Eagle Scout end up like Foster....
It's only the "land" part that is problematic.
(Sure hope he makes it)
Didn't something remarkably similar happen to him last summer?
I don't think I have ever heard the expression "balls to the wall". I know the old one of "balls out" referred to the governors on old steam engines which moved further out the faster the engine turned.
When I was a young and really reckless youth I used to race automobiles regularly. Can't believe I survived and never even had a wreck.
IIRC, Last summer he flew something, maybe "Spaceship One" for 65 hours and during the last hours his fuel ran low so he had to alter his coarse.
OOPS.. Coarse = course
and how did this become a useful phrase to describe some action.
Similarly, the phrase "dead nuts on" to describe rocket science accuracy?
Who thinks up this stuff?
Balls to the Wall
The phrase balls to the wall, meaning an all-out effort, sounds as if it is a reference to a part of the male anatomy, giving rise to some confusion as to what it originally meant. However, the original usage has nothing to do with anatomy, coming rather from the world of aviation.
On an airplane, the handles controlling the throttle and the fuel mixture are often topped with ball-shaped grips, referred to by pilots as (what else?) "balls." Pushing the balls forward, close to the front wall of the cockpit results in the most and richest mixture of fuel going to the engines and the highest possible speed.
The phrase dates to the early 1950s. Several veterans have written me noting their use of the term during the Korean War era. The earliest written citation is a bit later. The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang contains a quote from 1966-67, in Harvey's Air War:
You know what happened on that first Doomsday Mission (as the boys call a big balls-to-the-wall raid) against Hanoi oil.
Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.
IIRC "balls to the wall" in the old aeroplane the throttles had balls on top of the levers. Full power would have the levers against the panel. Hence "balls to the walls"
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
dead nuts - exactly on the mark, when the fractional units on an indicator all are zeros.
Yes, and he had a real or perceived fuel loss problem at the end of the flight.
What ever happened to WFO or WOT, go for broke peddle to the metal. floored max Q Ect bury it wind it out ect
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