Posted on Fri, May. 20, 2005

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Weather grounds adventurer Fossett at Buchanan Field
By Ryan Huff

 

CONCORD - For his latest feat, millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett left Novato on Thursday morning, bound for Ireland in a replica 1919 biplane.

In about an hour, he made it nearly to Dublin ... California.

Rainy weather forced Fossett and his co-pilot to make an unexpected landing at Buchanan Field. With an open-air craft -- made of cotton fabric, steel and wood -- they can't easily fly through storm clouds.

"We generally don't fly above 10,000 feet because it's also cold up there," said Fossett, who donned a silver NASCAR-like jumpsuit.

The 61-year-old daredevil made headlines in March when he became the first to pilot a solo nonstop flight around the world without refueling. The round-trip flight that left from Kansas took 67 hours in a single-engine Global-Flyer plane.

A former Chicago options trader, Fossett has now turned the adventure business into somewhat of a career.
"I used to fly for practical reasons, but now I'm more interested in breaking records," he said.
Fossett's brief stop in Concord drew a couple of dozen onlookers who shot pictures of the plane and stood awestruck in his presence.

Fossett and co-pilot Mark Rebholz left Concord about 2 p.m. Thursday en route to Arizona. They plan to skip across the country before arriving in Newfoundland about June 1.

They'll spend a couple of weeks there preparing for the 16-hour-plus transatlantic flight and waiting for the right weather conditions. The million-dollar plane travels about 75 mph.

"I hope we get a tailwind," Rebholz quipped. "I feel safe enough in it -- it's certified by the FAA. But there are definitely safer planes."

The men plan to duplicate the first transatlantic nonstop flight carried out in 1919 by Englishmen John Alcock and Arthur Brown. That means the 2005 journey will have no GPS navigational system -- just a sextant and drift meter.

Charles Lindbergh is probably the aviator best known for crossing the Atlantic alone in 1927. However, Alcock and Brown are relatively unknown, Rebholz said.

"That's why we're doing this flight," he said. "We want to bring recognition to those guys."

While their journey got off to a rough start Thursday, Rebholz is confident he and Fossett will successfully fly across the Atlantic.

As for landing, back in 1919, runways consisted of grass fields. Why conform to modern technology now?

"There's a public golf course in Clifden, Ireland, we already have permission to land on," Rebholz said.

Ryan Huff covers Concord and Clayton. Reach him at 925-977-8471 or rhuff@cctimes.com.

A few of Steve Fossett's ventures:
• First solo nonstop flight around the world without refueling -- 67 hours
• First solo balloon flight around the world -- 13 days
• Set 23 sailing world records since 1993
• Swam the 21-mile English Channel

-- Source: www.stevefossett.com