Around the World, With 13 Fuel Tanks and a Single Seat

Burt Rutan is at it again… Free registration required to read the article. From the New York Times, by Matthew L. Wald

Outsiders look at the GlobalFlyer, a single-seat airplane designed to make the first solo, nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world, and wonder how a pilot could function for 70 hours in a cigar-shaped cabin so snug he cannot even get out of his seat.

But the pilot, Steve Fossett, has another problem in mind: fuel.

Technicians at Scaled Composites, the company that built the plane, like to call it the Flying Fuel Tank. At takeoff - on Jan. 4 or as soon thereafter as the weather permits - it will weigh as much as a 50-seat commuter plane. If it is successful, it will land nearly three days later weighing less than a medium-size S.U.V.

On a recent test flight here it did not so much take off like a jet (which technically it is) as glide into the sky. Fully loaded, it will need more than two miles of runway to lift off.

The GlobalFlyer is first of all a feat of engineering - building a plane strong enough to climb into the sky with so much fuel and efficient enough to fly almost 20,000 miles without refueling. It is also a test of the pilot’s skill and of human endurance.

Mr. Fossett, glider pilot, sailor and balloonist, is being sponsored by Virgin Atlantic Airways, whose name is pasted prominently on the ungainly GlobalFlyer. Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., also built the Voyager - the two-seat propeller-driven plane that went nonstop and unrefueled around the world in 1986 - and SpaceShipOne, which took home the $10 million X Prize in October for the first private flight into space.