New round-the-world record flight

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Member for

20 years 5 months

Posts: 4,674

Not my words:

Swiss [actually Italian, I think] aviator Riccardo Mortara and his crew [from Sonnig SA] have set the record for the fastest flight around the world in a 9,000-12,000-kg aircraft [a Rockwell Sabreliner], news agencies reported on Monday. Their plane took off from Geneva at 06:12 local time on Friday morning, and returned Sunday at 16:06 local time, completing the 36,900 km ... in 57 hours 57 minutes. This is the first time a record has been set in this weight class with refueling stops – something that beats American pilot Steve Fossett’s time of 67 hours, which was achieved in a state-of-the-art plane in 2005. Mortara told reporters on Monday that he could have shown better time but for the ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland, which prompted the crew to change the route.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Riccardo-Mortara-360-World-Record/217669780955

Compare: The (non-orbital) round-the-world record is held by Air France Concorde F-BTSD, which did it in 31hrs 27min in August, 1995.

Original post

Member for

20 years

Posts: 409

My maths say 57 hrs 54 mins ,unless the `cuckoo` clocks are wrong...

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821

Fossett was solo and non-stop, IIRC and in a different class....I'm not sure what the connection is. :confused: :confused: :confused:

Wouldn't the record Learjet 36 flight from 1976 be a better yardstick?
It's record was 57 hrs, 26 min....of which 48 hrs and 48 minutes was flight time.