Posted on 11/10/2007 5:55:40 PM PST by real saxophonist
Greeley balloon designer remembers adventurer, friend
Dan England, (Bio) dengland@greeleytribune.com
November 10, 2007
When Tim Cole first got the phone call about Steve Fossett's disappearance, he was worried for his close friend. But he also figured it was Steve.
Surely, another phone call was on the way with the news that he was all right.
Cole, of Greeley, began working with Fossett in 1993 as a member of the Big Four, a group of aviation experts who gathered so Fossett could become the first person ever to fly around the world, alone, in a balloon. Cole was confident in his own abilities. He designed the balloon that eventually got Fossett the record after several attempts, and Cole acted as the project manager during the flights. But he always held a little bit of awe in his heart for Fossett. Cole was a balloon expert and an insurance agent for Farmers in Greeley. Fossett was an animal.
When the news of the airplane Fossett was piloting disappeared over the Nevada desert hit on Sept. 3, Fossett held or set 93 aviation records. He had climbed six of the world's seven highest peaks on each continent. He finished the Ironman in Hawaii and ran a 100-mile race in Leadville. And though some would laugh at this suggestion, Cole knew Fossett was not a risk-taker. He was always careful, detailed and disciplined, even if his adventures carried some degree of chance. When things went wrong, Fossett knew what to do, and he always escaped unscathed. He once walked 30 miles for help after an emergency landing in a plane. And one of those balloon missions, in 1998, ended with a five-mile plummet that nearly killed him. He waited 72 hours to be rescued. He greeted them with a smile.
As the days went on, and the worry began to consume Cole, he thought about the last time he and the rest of the Big Four were together with Fossett. Fossett was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, mainly for that balloon ride, and he wanted the others responsible for it there with him.
They were talking about upcoming trips. Fossett set many records since that balloon ride, and Cole and the others were heavily involved in those attempts. In the coming years, Fossett wanted to build a single-man submarine and set the world record for diving depth. He wanted to set a land speed record. He wanted to set more flying records.
"No way did anyone believe our adventures were over," Cole said about that night.
This was Steve, so even a plane crash or an emergency landing would be OK. He could survive that, Cole thought during the first couple of days. Fossett was obviously a great pilot, and he owned a plane exactly like the one he was flying, so if he had to bring it down under arduous conditions, he could do it.
"I kept waiting for the report, three to five days later, that he had walked out of the brush," Cole said.
But as time progressed, and the hopeful searches every day ended in disappointment and the crushing weight of not knowing began to get a little heavier every day, Cole approached Fossett's disappearance like one of the record-breaking missions the two enjoyed together for so many years.
Why didn't the tracking system work? Why did the plane fail? How severe was the impact? It began to consume him. And yet Cole knew he needed to stay in Greeley.
"We didn't want to cause more problems for the search party," Cole said. "It was a very secluded area, and there were no facilities there, and there was nothing we could have done."
He knew that. That was the logical side of him talking, the guy who could lead Fossett out of storm clouds or methodically plan a trip around the world on a balloon that he designed. But the friend in him constantly fought the urge to strap on a backpack and start looking. Through e-mails, the Big Four finally pitched the idea out the window.
"It was frustrating," Cole said. "You want to go out there. I really did. But we would be creating a potential hazard with the conditions the way they were out there."
Cole, a pilot of logic, knows Fossett is dead.
"Even the best survival experts wouldn't be able to be out there that long," he said.
Yet he refuses to believe it. He won't believe until he has an answer. No, until he knows what exactly happened to Fossett and the plane that carried him, he won't accept that his friend is dead.
This is Steve, after all.
"I was constantly waiting for that phone call that he was all right when I heard he had disappeared," he said, "and I'm still waiting."
So Fossett’s plane DID have a beacon?
So they stilll don’t know whats happened...Not that its going to be any big surprise...
The story sure has dropped off the radar, pardon the pun...
Like anyone else that lives to the extreme, this may surely be not a big surprise...
But they sure were happy doing it...Thats the only way to live!
I'll bet it was that dam sting-ray again.
Fossett’s tracking crew was here in St. Louis for his balloon missions. I keep waiting for that story too. He was/is one of a kind, that’s for sure.
He's in Galt's Gulch, which can't be seen from the air -
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