Breaking News Storyfrom Record-Courier News, large search underway in Nevada
Steve Fossett website , and Wikipedia on Steve Fossett
Apparently took-off yesterday around noon with 4-5 hours of fuel in a Citabria Super Decathlon.
EDIT: Fossett has set 116 records in five different sports, 76 of which still stand.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/robbreid/SteveFossett.jpg Civil Air Patrol stated aircraft took off at 845am Nevada time, about 120 miles SE of Reno Nevada from a private ranch.
Edit: The celebrated adventurer has an application pending before the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for a permit in Nevada to make an attempt at breaking the land speed record of 766.6 mph.
In 2002, Fossett became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon after failing spectacularly in five previous attempts. He followed up that feat in 2005 by circling the globe solo in a jet without refueling.
He also swam the English Channel in 1985, finished the Iditarod dog sled race in 1992, participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race in 1996 and broke the global sailing record by six days in 2004.
Here are 2 other links on the topic.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070904/ap_ … ve_fossett
cnn.com/2007/US/09/04/fosset … index.html
Hope things turn out for the best.
Steve Fossett interview on YouTube from Forbes.
solo round the world flight piloted by Steve Fossett.
The very familiar Virgin Global Flyerhttp://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/robbreid/VirginGlobalFlyer.jpg
N240R Citabria Super Decathlon/Bellanca 8KCAB-180, Serial Number (C/N): 635-80 [ Photo of missing aircraft ]](Aircraft N240R (1980 Bellanca 8KCAB-180 Super Decathlon C/N 635-80) Photo by Doug Robertson (Photo ID: AC12493))
News today is that they have made a search area of 10,000 square miles. That seems at first glance a bit much of a radius for a Citabria’s range, doesn’t it? …Haven’t done the math, but it seems like a lot. Hearing how rugged the terrain is, I guess I’d focus on a more detailed search closer to the point of origin…thoughts?
10,000 sq.mi. is a box with 100 mi sides. Well within a Decathlon’s range…
BTW…I don’t get back there often, but I love the candy shop keep up the good work… 
Fossett search area extended again
September 08, 2007, 06:45
The search for U.S. adventurer Steve Fossett, missing in the rugged Nevada desert for five days, was expanded again on Friday, but authorities said they were suspending night flights.
Capt. April Conway, spokeswoman for the Nevada Air National Guard, told reporters the air search had been extended to 17,000 sq miles (44,000 sq km) from 10,000 sq miles (26,000 sq km).
Conway said authorities had recalculated the fuel consumption in Fossett’s small, single engine plane and thought he might have flown farther than previously envisaged.
The night flights by two planes carrying infrared technology will be discontinued from Friday because they were not yielding productive results, she said. The daytime air searches will continue throughout the weekend.
About 25 planes are flying over the mountainous terrain where the 63-year-old millionaire and aviation record-setter’s plane disappeared on Monday. He was scouting locations for a planned attempt to set a land speed record.
Authorities told reporters they had followed several leads and apparent sightings over the past few days but had turned up nothing promising.
Wreckage was spotted in the Black Rock Desert, north of Reno, on Thursday, but it turned out to be a 43-year-old crash site.
If he was scouting for land speed record locations, shouldn’t they concentrate on searching the flat lands? Unless they covered all of the flat lands in the 17,000 sq mile grid, that’s where I would be lookin’.
[ CLICK HERE ]](http://by109w.bay109.mail.live.com/mail/ReadMessageLight.aspx?Aux=4|0|8C9C0BCE6CCC730|&FolderID=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&InboxSortAscending=False&InboxSortBy=Date&ReadMessageId=1b28e0e1-0a24-4373-8a5e-aa253500d0ca&n=1106298899)You are invited to help find Steve Fosset using GOOGLE EARTH.
Link doesn’t work.
While I applaud the efforts of the gentleman, can this really be done? Isn’t there a disclaimer for Google Earth that says satellite images can be between 1-4 years old? I know the image of Southern Hills CC here in Tulsa is REALLY old (probably about 3 1/2 years) because that was when the course was torn up for remodeling…
Just a thought, not intended to undermine the efforts to find Mr. Fossett
Well, that answered that…
THANKS!!!
Think this kind of effort would be made by Google Earth if it were any of us that went down? Not downplaying, just curious/ hoping. They obviously have the ability!
Force suspends U.S. CAPs search for famed aviator Steve Fossett
Search began Sept. 4, involved 100s of members, more than 17,000 man-hrs., 1,774 flight hrs.
October 03, 2007
NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS – The search for record-setting aviator Steve Fossett ended Oct. 2 after a 20,000-square-mile search that included members of the Nevada, California, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas wings in what amounted to one of the largest, most intensive searches for a missing aircraft ever.
Over the last decade, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and CAP have been involved in thousands of searches for missing aircraft, and only 18 of those missions are unsolved. CAP members perform 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as assigned by the AFRCC, which credited them with saving 58 lives in 2006.
“The Civil Air Patrol joins the rest of the aviation world and admirers worldwide in its disappointment in not locating Steve Fossett,” said CAP’s acting national commander, Brig. Gen. Amy S. Courter. “This remarkable man showed us what grit and determination are all about. In his life, he chased and shattered world records, floating and flying farther and faster than anyone before. His adventures are many and his accomplishments profound. We regret that those adventures may have come to an end.”
The search for Fossett began Sept. 4, a day after he failed to return to the Flying M Ranch’s private airstrip near Yerington, Nev. Initially, more than 60 Nevada Wing members and six aircraft were involved in the search effort.
This expanded to include hundreds of members and more than 25 aircraft during the following days. Sophisticated “grid” searches of thousands of square miles of rugged, high-desert terrain were conducted by CAP members, who devoted more than 17,000 man-hours both on the ground and in the air. CAP flew 629 flights totaling 1,774 flying hours.
Nearly a dozen radar analysis experts reviewed the Fossett radar data, including experts from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Air Force, Navy, National Transportation Safety Board and CAP, using multiple approaches and software tools, all looking for one thing Fossetts radar track, said U.S. Air Force radar analysis expert Lt. Guy Loughridge of the Colorado Wing.
“Tracks often come in broken pieces because the radar sites see an aircraft for a short period, and then the track vanishes below radar coverage or behind a mountain,” Loughridge said. “If Fossetts plane flew below mountains at low altitudes, no amount of analytical effort or technology will detect his radar track. We cannot analyze what is not visible.”
The search included use of CAPs cutting-edge ARCHER (Airborne Real-Time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance) technology. ARCHER aircraft gave aircrews the ability to find unique objects on the ground using specially equipped on-board computers and hyperspectral sensor technology.
CAPs efforts integrated fully with the Nevada Army and Air Guard, the Nevada Office of Emergency Management and Department of Public Safety. In addition, CAP worked closely with local law enforcement agencies and massive private resources from both the Flying M Ranch and the Fossett family.
The weekend of Sept. 29-30, CAP aircraft again flew over terrain judged by radar analysis to most likely have been Fossetts flight path. From the start of the operation these areas were searched repeatedly at different times of day and light angles so crews could better see into deep mountain ravines. Ground search teams on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles simultaneously combed the same target areas.
Despite the well-coordinated effort, Fossett and his aircraft remain undetected. “This is a testament to the unforgiving terrain comprising the search area,” said search leader Lt. Col. E.J. Smith of Nevada Wing Headquarters. “The combination of high altitude, thick forest and mountainous terrain proved to be unconquerable during this particular search operation.”
“Although the search effort by the Civil Air Patrol has been officially suspended by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, should new information become available, CAP could be asked to assist once again with its considerable air assets,” Courter said.
If we are to learn something from this, one good lesson is that a personal locater beacon is a good investment when flying over this kind of terrain in a small plane. For ~$500 this might not have happened.
But we do know that the A/C was equipped with an ELT that apparently did not go off or was not manually activated. That sort of supposes that the crash was not survivable.
Not necessarily. The old (121.5) ELT technology is notoriously unreliable. It is also possible that it did go off for awhile before the battery was depleted.
Or was there even a crash???
Dun, Dun, Duhhhhhhhhh!!! 
