Around the World In 14 Days 261
An anonymous reader writes: "Adventurer Steve Fossett succeeded Tuesday on his sixth try to pilot a balloon solo around the world, crossing the meridian where he started his historic journey June 19, his ground crew at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, announced. Here is the official site, while there's also several other articles, including this one."
I could do that... (Score:1, Informative)
@20,000 mile trip (Score:3, Informative)
not 24,000 miles (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, he set a record for the longest distance solo flight, I'll give him that.
Here are the "official rules" (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fai.org/ballooning/rtw2-98.asp [fai.org]
There's lots of interesting info on their website at http://www.fai.org/ [fai.org]
It's a good read, if for no other reason than gaining the ability to drop "homologation" into your next conversation.
Re:Wouldn't it have been easier... (Score:2, Informative)
This guy has done lots of other stuff too (Score:2, Informative)
To quote;
"Fossett's other adventures have including swimming the English Channel, piloting a dog sled in the Iditarod race in Alaska, driving in the LeMans auto endurance race in France and finishing the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii."
Re:wow (Score:2, Informative)
He's still flying, due to a lack of Latin (Score:3, Informative)
The print version of the story goes on to describe a safe landing was a large open area, dotted with a few trees to avoid dragging him around.
The catch ? He was planning on flying over the Nullarbor plain in Western Australia. Nullarbor is not Australain Aboriginal - it means "No Trees" in Latin for obvious reasons.
So they are going to skip that, stay south and will probably hit South Australia in a couple of hours, continuing to clock up the miles.