[Earl B.]

Maybe this has been discussed here already - if so, I apologize.

But, Did this guy legitimately fly "around the world?" It seems that he really flew "around Antarctica," barely catching the southern tips of South America and Africa. Shouldn't one at least cross the equater at some point in a circumnavigation of the globe?

[dead]

You have a good point. If you take it to the extreme, anybody at who's visited either pole can claim to have "circumnavigated" the globe in seconds, and on foot.

[Billy_bob_bob]

You do have quite a point there. I'll leave it to the experts to decide that one. Whatever this guy has done, he's the first to do it, whatever that may be. Perhaps set a record for longest time aloft, or farthest solo flight, who knows?

[MeekOneGOP]

I was wondering about that too. I thought, wait a minute! The earth is 24,000 miles at the equator, but he goes 18,000 miles and it gets counted as around the world? But then, couldn't you say that if you jog from San Francisco to New York you could claim to jog across the U.S. even though you didn't jog from San Diego to the Northeasternmost point in the U.S. I say give it to him, LOL! He's tried SIX times - what persistence!

[OReilly]

But, Did this guy legitimately fly "around the world?"

I say it is obvious to most that he didn't, and after how many tries, couldn't, for any number of fluky reasons. But I am tired of guys who got rich on founders stock getting their 15 minutes, over and over again. Just give it to him, with the asterisk saying that he finally did it at a latitude that maximized jet stream speed and minimized actual distance traveled.

Any international organization that decrees that 70% of the distance around the world qualifies as 100% of the circumnavigational distance, is suspect on its face. Why wouldn't 60% be as good? (or 1%)

The reason he has been able to get as far as he has, with his ruse, is that no one else is egotistical enough to make a race out of it. Once the time parameter is introduced, the distance is automatically a factor.