U.S. aviator Steve Fossett has begun his quest to set a world record for the longest airplane flight.
Fossett took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this Wednesday morning at approximately 7:20 EST/12:20 GMT aboard his experimental Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer.
His plan is to circle the globe, then fly across the Atlantic a second time and land in London.
The millionaire adventurer will try to fly more than 41,000 kilometers in just 80 hours. That would break the previous record set in 1986 by Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager. It would also break the record set by the balloonists of the Breitling Orbiter 3 in 1999.
Fossett was forced to cancel his original departure on Tuesday because of a fuel leak.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
