By the way, I somehow neglected to mention the coolest link— to the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer Flight Tracker, with real-time location and news updates.

The website itself has more detailed news updates as well, including an interesting note about how Steve had to add miles to the trip just to reach the round-the-globe requirement of 19,863 nautical miles. (No permalink, but it’s at the top of the front page right now.) Huh? You take off in Salina, Kansas… You land in Salina, Kansas… but somehow the fastest path may not be long enough to qualify as a round-the-globe trip? What am I missing?

It’s also got to be a bit bizarre when you’re worried about fuel and you’re artificially adding miles to your trip to satisfy the bean-counters at the Guiness Book or something…

Update: Ahh, this article makes much more sense: "He is trying to break several aviation records, including the longest flight by a jet. The record is more than 19 300km, set by a B-52 bomber in 1962." So it was probably something like this which required him to add more miles. Incredibly ambitious when you’re running low on fuel!