All the news these days seems to be talking about Virgin Galactic and how Branson is working with Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites on five spaceships to begin space tourism in just a few years. While that’s obviously very exciting, it’s also interesting to see what Burt Rutan is cooking up for the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, an experimental plane that should allow Steve Fossett (Branson’s ballooning partner) to become the first man to fly solo around the world non-stop.   More info from the Scaled Composites press release:

Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer is a single pilot, single engine turbofan aircraft specifically designed for one mission -- a non-stop global circumnavigation. Fuel load, weight and strength are paramount. The main structure is constructed entirely from advanced composite materials and the aircraft can carry more than four times its own weight in fuel -- enough to power the specially designed Williams FJ44-3 jet engine for the entire flight. At take off the plane (including fuel and pilot Fossett) will weigh 22,006 lbs. Less than 80 hours and some 23,000 miles later, it will have shed 18,000 lbs. of fuel to land near its dry weight of a little under 4,000 lbs.

Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer will fly at altitudes up to 52,000 feet and travel at speeds in excess of 250 knots (287 mph, 463 kph). Careful flight planning, weather routing and navigation should allow the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer to benefit from the high-altitude jet stream, adding speed, conserving fuel and enabling the mission to meet its target time of 80 hours.

Incredible. From a recent tv interview (with Branson on video-link from the Mojave), it looks like they’ve begun test flights for GlobalFlyer already. Scaled Composites is very quickly becoming the leading aeronautics R&D firm in the world, and even non-space-related projects like this contribute to that expertise. (Looks like it’s time for a new adventures channel too, which seems obvious for a Richard Branson news site!)