Fossett claims gliding record (WOW : 50,699')
Aug. 30, 2006. 11:42 AM
BILL CORMIER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUENOS AIRES — U.S. tycoon and adventurer Steve Fossett, already famous
for sailboating and solo ballooning records, claims to have soared to
new heights in an engineless glider over the Argentine Andes.

The 62-year-old Chicago investment mogul said he and Norwegian co-pilot
Einar Enevoldson, 74, rode powerful rising air currents above the remote
Patagonia region on Tuesday, reaching a record 15,453 metres.

"We have made attempts in New Zealand, the United States and Argentina
over a period of five years, so this is a hard-won success," Fossett
said in the statement released by his publicist.

He said he was jubilant after breaking the record of 14,937 metres, set
in 1986 by American Robert Harris in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

Fossett's claim, which could not immediately be independently verified,
will now be subject to scrutiny by the world aviation authority, the
Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

He said he and Enevoldson, a former NASA test pilot, rode in a
lightweight, unpressurized glider named "Perlan" — Norwegian for
``pearl" — which was released from a tow plane at 3,962 metres. The
pilots then rose on currents above the Andes backbone near the border
with Chile.

The two said they used El Calafate, a popular launch point near southern
Argentina's glaciers, some 2,092 kilometres south of the capital of
Buenos Aires.

Both wore pressurized suits for the more than four-hour climb to extreme
altitudes — where they relied on foot heaters to fight the chill in
their cramped cockpit as outside temperatures dropped to 71 degrees
below zero.

They also said they collected meteorological data for a NASA and U.S.
Navy study of the polar vortex, a pattern of high-speed winds circling
Antarctica in the stratosphere.

Fossett said that during the flight they spotted a commercial airliner
cruising below the glider at 10,668 metres.

"I couldn't understand how the Chilean controller described us in
Spanish to the airline pilot," he said in the statement. "But I
understood the answer by the pilot: 'Wow.'''

Fossett and Enevoldson attempted to best Harris' mark — which stood for
more than 20 years — during three winter seasons in New Zealand from
2002 to 2004. But they said the atmospheric wave pattern there was not
strong enough to boost their glider high enough to match Harris' feat then.

Fossett told The Associated Press in 2004 that he was moving his effort
to Argentina.

In 2002, Fossett became the first to fly a hot air balloon solo around
the world, landing in the Australian outback on July 4. He nearly lost
his life twice in six attempts at the feat.