Will there ever be another adventurer like Steve Fossett? There are only seven absolute world records for fixed-wing aircraft recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Fossett broke three of them. No pilot had ever held world records in more than one class of aircraft. He held them in four. Apart from aviation feats, he climbed more than 400 mountain peaks, participated in a sled-dog race, swam across the English Channel and ran in several marathons.

For anyone who protested that the last frontier had been conquered and the spirit of adventure was dead, Steve Fossett had a simple message: adventure is just around the corner. Determined to savour life with full gusto, for Fossett, the hint of peril made it all the more thrilling.

James Stephen Fossett was born in Jackson, Tennessee, USA. His early years as a Boy Scout mountain hiking around California instilled in him a lifelong thirst for adventure and discovery. An MBA degree, a career as a stockbroker and his own trading firm, Marathon Securities, made him a multi-millionaire and helped fund his restless search for records to break. And he conquered a truly astounding range. There are only seven absolute world records for fixed-wing aircraft recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Fossett broke three of them. No pilot had ever held world records in more than one class of aircraft. He held them in four. There is space only for mention of the most striking examples.

In 2002, Fossett became the first person to fly solo non-stop around the world in a balloon. His ‘Spirit of Freedom’ took off from Northam, Western Australia on June 19 and returned on July 3, subsequently landing in Queensland, Australia. The flight duration was 13 days, eight hours and 33 minutes (14 days, 19 hours and 50 minutes to landing), covering a distance of 33,195.10 km. “The good thing about flying solo is it’s never boring,” he observed. Fossett also set the absolute world speed record for airships on October 27, 2004, in a Zeppelin NT, at an average speed of 62.2 knots.

In the fixed wing category, Fossett made the first solo non-stop flight around the world between February 28, 2005, and March 3, 2005. He took off from Salina, Kansas, USA and flew eastbound, with the prevailing winds, returning to Salina after 67 hours, one minute, 10 seconds, without refuelling or making intermediate landings. His average speed of 550.7 km/hour was also the absolute world record for speed around the world, nonstop and non-refuelled. His aircraft, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, had a carbonfibre reinforced-plastic airframe, with a single Williams FJ44 turbofan engine. It was designed and built by Burt Rutan and his company, Scaled Composites, for long-distance solo flight. The fuel fraction—the weight of fuel divided by the weight of the aircraft at take-off—was an amazing 83 per cent. On February 11, 2006, Fossett set the absolute world record for “distance without landing” by flying from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, around the world eastbound, then upon returning to Florida continuing across the Atlantic a second time to land in Bournemouth, England. He covered a distance of 41,467 km in a time of 76 hours 45 minutes.

On September 3, 2007, 8.45 am, Fossett took off in a single-engine light aircraft from a private airstrip in Nevada. When he did not return as expected, an air and ground search was launched. The search continued for a month, with perhaps two dozen aircraft involved at the peak, but nothing was found. The crash site was located more than a year later on a hill slope a little below the crest. DNA testing confirmed the bone fragments as being those of Fossett. The most plausible explanation is while attempting to cross the hill, he got caught in a downdraft and failed to make it. At the time of his death, Fossett had been planning to break the world land-speed record by reaching 1,287 km/hour in a jet vehicle in Nevada.