GLOBAL AIR RACING

[Airrace7]

I wasn't quite sure why Steve Fosset decided to break the record for flying arround the world by himself untill I just recently heard Dick Rutan's comments on the radio. It seems that Dick has always had a dream to have some sort of "Global Air Racing". All the racers would have the same amount of fuel and take off at the same time and race around the world.

Since Dick is not only a record holder himeslf (Voyager) and his brother (Burt Rutan) company desiged and built both airplanes we might see his dream of Global Air Racing in the future.

I wonder how much it would cost to have a global flyer built??

[Apteryx]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

Viagra would make a good sponser...

[First time Juke]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

How much time did it take for Mr.Rutan and Mrs.Jaeger to fly around the world with the Voyager ?

[First time Juke]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

Ok folks !

It took nine days for the previous attempt to circumnavigate the globe in the air nonstop. Hard to believe, but it happened already nearly two decades ago.

http://www.dickrutan.com/page2.html

[Peashooter]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

Imagine: two people for nine days in the space equivalent to a phone booth!

BTW, a global air race could become another sport of the wealthy or the corporate sponsor, not unlike the Volvo Around the World Race for sailboats. See: http://www.volvooceanrace.org/

It would certainly push aviation technology.

[hattend]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

Imagine: two people for nine days in the space equivalent to a phone booth!

Well, you did notice that they went their separate ways after the flight. They were an "item" during the build.

Their relationship may have been on the rocks but living with each other for 9 days 24/7 probably sunk it for good.

Don

[AirDOGGe]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

GLOBAL race? Well, you'd better apply a maximum altitude limit, less Mr. Rutan tosses together an orbital version of SpaceShipOne and completes the race in 90+ minutes Maybe we can set a maximum altitude of 70,000 ft (High enough so as not to discourage any supersonic or hypersonic concepts).


I think it would be an interesting idea, however, Fossett must have jumped through a lot of hoops getting flyover permissions from all those countries. I recall the hassles he went through just to get permissions for the balloon-record journeys.

I wonder how nationals would feel if they were asked to allow several such planes to overfly their territory every year? Sounds like a tricky task.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

It'd get pretty boring waiting for the field to pass for the second lap too....

[First time Juke]

Re: GLOBAL AIR RACING

Passings and the roar of the engines wouldn't be that interesting for the spectators either.

I think more challenging would be humanpowered airracers on a closed circuit.

Examples here:

http://www.excite.fr/directory/Science/Technology/Aerospace/Aeronautics/Human_Powered

http://www.geometry.net/detail/sports/human_powered_vehicles_page_no_5.html