Aviator aiming to break record

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Steve Fossett, this era's Phileas Fogg, wants to do something not even the ''Around the World in 80 Days" hero could contemplate: Fly around the globe -- and then some -- for more than three days without stopping.

His goal is to break a 20-year-old record for the longest flight. He plans to travel 27,012 miles in a spindly experimental airplane that helped him break a different record last year.

During his 80 hours in the air, Fossett will take power naps no longer than five minutes each and drink a steady diet of nutritious milkshakes.

His flight is tentatively set for dawn tomorrow. He will take off at a runway used to land space shuttles, head east, circumnavigate the world, and continue over the Atlantic Ocean for a second time before landing outside London.

''Except for takeoff and landing, it's a slow pace," he said. ''That's a good thing. It gives me time to think about every step that I'm making because if I make an error . . . it will be devastating to the flight."

If successful, Fossett's trip would surpass the previous airplane record of 24,987 miles set in 1986 by the Voyager aircraft piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager, as well as the balloon record of 25,361 miles set by the Breitling Orbiter 3 in 1999.

When Fossett leaves the ground depends on the weather. Temperature at takeoff must be less than 54 degrees to achieve maximum thrust, and the earliest time that criteria will be met is tomorrow.

Fossett has faced delays unrelated to weather or engineering. The takeoff was pushed back a few days because Chinese authorities were unable to issue the overflight permits during the Chinese New Year, and the plane's movement to the Kennedy Space Center last month was delayed because of a mishap that damaged a wing. Fossett, 61, a former Chicago investment tycoon, has a wellspring of patience. He had failed five times before circumnavigating the globe solo in a balloon in 2002.

This time the aviator plans to use the same plane, the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, that he used last March when he became the first person to fly solo nonstop, without refueling, around the globe in 67 hours. The venture is being financed by Virgin Atlantic Airways founder Richard Branson.

The glider-like aircraft with a 114-foot wing span has two external booms, holding 5,454 pounds of fuel, on either side of the 7-foot-long cockpit, which supports the engine.

At takeoff, fuel is expected to account for almost 85 percent of the graphite-made aircraft's weight. Drag parachutes are used to help it descend from its average flying height of about 45,000 feet or slow it down from a top speed of 285 miles per hour.

''When you have an aircraft like that, everything except the cockpit and the engine are basically a part of the fuel tank," said Dick Knapinski, a spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wis.

''The engine can't be too large because then it would add extra weight, which would need extra fuel, which means you need a bigger airplane," he said. ''It's a fine line for the person doing the engineering."

That person is Burt Rutan, who designed the Voyager airplane that his brother, Dick Rutan, and Yeager used to set the record almost two decades ago.