This Day, That Year – February 21

This day in history we feature Steve Fossett. Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon on this in 1995.

Trivia – Steve Fossett

James Stephen Fossett was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He made his fortune in the financial services industry and held world records for five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot. He was an aviator of exceptional breadth of experience.

Related read – An 83-year-old man becomes the oldest to sail solo across the Pacific

Steve Fossett wanted to become the first person to achieve a solo balloon flight around the world. He set, with co-pilot Terry Delore, 10 of the 21 Glider Open records, including the first 2,000 km Out-and-Return, the first 1,500 km Triangle and the longest Straight Distance flights. His achievements as a jet pilot in a Cessna Citation X include records for U.S. Transcontinental, Australia Transcontinental, and Round-the-World westbound non-supersonic flights. Prior to Fossett’s aviation records, no pilot had held world records in more than one class of aircraft; Fossett held them in four classes. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, Fossett set more than one hundred records[verification needed] in five different sports, sixty of which still stood at the time of his death. He broke three of the seven absolute world records for fixed-wing aircraft recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, all in his Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. In 2002, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club of the UK, and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007. Fossett disappeared on September 3, 2007, while flying a light aircraft over the Great Basin Desert, between Nevada and California. Fossett’s plane was discovered wrecked in 2008.

Source – Wikipedia