Steve Fossett Aviation Record Holder Missing
 

One thing that bothers me- he didn't file a flight plan that doesn't make any sense.

Still no sighting.:(

It would be an ironic twist if he met his fate sightseeing after all the big risks he has taken. Hopefully he beats the odds again.

One can only hope but what bothers me most, he didn't file a flight plan..

If he is flying VFR, which thousands of private pilots fly daily, they aren't required to file a flight plan.

Doesn't look good. Or he could planning another big "something" and this is another attention-getter...

I agree. It doesn’t look good at all.

As for the flight plan issue. I’d bet most of his time in the 8KCAB are flown without a flight plan. Nothing new, nor odd about it.

Hope he didn't drift too far south and get caught up in Texas' opening day of dove season.

I'm plane dumb (as opposed to plain dumb): do planes not have EPIRB or its equivalent? If not, wtf? I also thought Fossett had a $100K watch that was like an EPIRB but relayed 'health' data if something went wrong?

I just don't understand how a 25 ft. sailboat can be found floundering in 200K sq. miles of ocean but they are having to do a grid search for a plane in a 600 sq. mile area.:confused:

Good point.

The Breitling Emergency has EPIRB but I think it is manually deployed.

I bet 300 knts into a butte would set it off. I just keep hearing this sheriff or something speaking on the news about this cutting edge technology they are using to search for him that has to do with identiifying color out of the desert background.

Perhaps the watch was damaged?

FLIR, with the old tech you could see a dick on a donkey @ 1000 meters I can only imagine the hi res today. If he is dead its going to be tough to find him since he would be desert temp.

Yes, you have to unscrew an antenna that is where the watch lugs are and the pull it out to start the beacon. If he got knocked out or the watch got damaged, of course, it wouldn't work.

Aricraft are equipped with an ELT. Most are the size of a large walkie-talkie and are mounted in such a way that most forward impacts will activate an inertia switch to set them off. They can also be activated manually.

This is no guarantee that: 1, the batteries were good or 2, any impact was sufficient to activate the inertia switch. If he had health problems, set it down, then became incapacitated, it's not likely to be transmitting either.

On a side note: I forget if it's a reg. that all aircraft are so equipped. AFAIK, none of the experimental stuff I've worked on has had one...

If I was a billionaire, my ELT would go off if I farted.

Stand by for the visual....

I picturing those annoying car alarms that seem to be set off by a breeze . . .

A moderately hard landing can trigger them so, in the old days it was SOP to tune your radio to 121.5 (the old ELT freq) and listen before leaving the aircraft.

This guy's a perfect example of someone who amassed all sorts of money doing questionable work to get it and then goes out and squanders enormous sums of that money in stroking his ego.

I could'a told the guy that most dry lake beds in Nevada are unstable -- possible quick sand covered by dust.

Utah has lake beds that are perfect for what he was looking at. But even some of the big lake beds there don't get dry enough to do what he wanted. Lake Sevier, for example, in SW Utah, looks like a dried salt lake from a distance but the surface is usually at least sorta damp and soft. Just enough for your foot to leave an impression, not to sink up to your knee in, but I imagine such softness would not do well at 600 + mph.

Looks like we may have another Amelia Earhart.

Why do you automatically have scorn for this guy? His family is torn apart with grief because he is lost. I thought Zen teachings were more born of compassion, not contempt.

I hope they find him.

Mee too.

There aren't too many of these flying dare devil types around anymore, guess I'll just have to take his place....

Come on down and check out some of the crazy crop dusters in South La. and get back to us on that;):D

Or catch a ride with DJ in the 300L.
(and bring a zip-lock ;))

It's a Puke-O-Matic ... +/– 10 Gs, roll rate >360/second.

Oh man I'd love to do that and barn storming....woooohooooo.

I don need no stinkin zip-lock.

Having looked at the Google sat' maps and given the guys flying search are good at their job, it is begining to look like he went down in Walker Lake NV directly east of the airfield.

This is the most likely place to loose a plane without trace...kinda... although an oil slick would most probably be on the surface along with pieces floating too.

I would say that it is unlikely he'd arrange his own disappearence, being as this search has gotten costly.

What was the duration of his plane.?


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At 55% power, cruise 125-130mph.
His duration is ~4.5 hrs w/ 45 min res. with std tanks.

At 75% power, pushing 150mph.
Take an hour off of that.


The 8KCAB is a small plane. It wouldn’t be hard to miss, down in the trees.

The good thing is, most have pretty bright paint jobs on them (top of the wings, especially).

The bad thing is, they are also fabric over tube frame. If it burns – It becomes nearly invisible.

I was thinking about that the other day ( emergency landing.) flying with a buddy of mine in a 1940 'ish Taylor Craft. I think it's a BC12D.

It is brown all over and would be hard to spot...and less visible if it burnt..although with a stall speed of 43 knots would be relatively easy to drop into a small field.

I flew a 1941 Cub, 20+ years ago with the same characteristics in England....came in to the local field and touched down rolling backwards due to a stiff head wind.

Looking at the map, it seems possible he might have flown a long way to find a salt flat to race on around there...nothing seems suitable unless heading to Utah area or Black Rock Desert, but that seems a long way on only 4 hours of gas..


.

He's gone..........

Please explain and reveal your sources.:grim:


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Did they find him?

They're doing DNA testing on a grease spot they located. Results at eleven. . . .

alittle update
http://www.stevefossett.com/

The sad thing is. Had that been you or I that disappeared out there. They would have looked for (maybe) 3 days and said: “Well…maybe they’ll show up somewhere.”
End of search.

As they have for so many others lost in the region.

Not if my step mother has anything to say about it!

“Mam. There’s 60zillion square miles of land out there.”
“We just do not have the manpower or resources to cover the entire area.”
“We’ve done all we can for now."
"We’ll contact you if the situation changes.”

You know our buddies on the Forum would send out the possie if anything happened to us. Of course there would have to be some sort of incentive like a bottle of 25 year old Macallans to whoever found us.

Did you say somebody is missing? What about a bottle of MacCallans? Huh? What?

We'd hunt you down for less than that, girl.

Pussy Posse.

Sorry, return to your regular programming.

A friend and I were joking about a woman we know who is into rescuing feral cats and who talks about it all the time. I suggested that we form a group for men to do that. We could have some of those cool-looking satin jackets made up that say "Feral Pussy Hunters" on the back.:D

DJ has fallen, and she can't get up.

Some of his possessions have been found...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,431307,00.html

and today, possibly the plane has been found

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26976119/