Just saw this on CNN.com

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

Not good. Not good at all.

I'm not familiar with the Nevada desert, does the average surface there allow for succesful emergency landings?

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Hope it turns out well. Fossett is someone I admire for his sense of adventure and fun.

Mostly desert, so he won't have to worry about drowning. But a big mixture of mountains and flat areas.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

I just found a little more information here.

Fossett, 63, was last seen taking off from the Hilton Ranch south of Smith Valley in a single engine Citabria Super Decathlon heading south.
Civil Air Patrol Nevada Wing Mission Public Information Officer Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan said three crews are in the air looking for Fossett’s blue and white aircraft and that more are on the way.
“We will be launching more shortly,” she said.
The search area covers hundreds of square miles of rugged terrain. The Civil Air Patrol has called area airports looking for Fossett.

A Super Decathlon is a fun plane (I took my spin training in a regular Decathlon many years ago) but I don't know if that would be my first choice for a night flight, especially over rugged terrain. A Decathlon is often used as an aerobatic trainer and for intermediate class aerobatic competitions. As such, the stability is less than more conventional planes. Flying at night over sparsely populated terrain is more challenging due to a lack of visual references. Most Decathlons aren't set up for instrument flying and the lower stability makes it somewhat more challenging to fly under those conditions. Fortunately, the plane has a slow landing speed and rugged construction. If Fossett ran into trouble (such as an engine failure), then there's a pretty good chance that he could survive impact if he had the plane under control.

There's an old joke about what to do if you lose power in a single engined plane at night.

1. Fly the plane - keep it under control.
2. Set up the proper glide speed.
3. When you get near the ground, turn on your landing light.
4. If you don't like what you see, turn the light off.

I hope they find him in one piece. One of the old-school of explorers, stuck in the modern era breaking records.

Doug

...and Nevada has the largest percentage of military-controlled land area of all the States...

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Having military controlled area is a good thing when you're lost, unless it's a minefield. I hope he's alright and this is just one more amazing story on his list.

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Steve Fossett is not the only thing missing.

http://www.stevefossett.com/

It probably got real busy.

As usual, Wikipedia is current:

Wikipedia: Steve Fossett:

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Having military controlled area is a good thing when you're lost, unless it's a minefield.

It depends on whether the controlled airspace might hamper the search & rescue operations. I've read that over 80% of all the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government. Some of it is among the most restricted airspace in the country (e.g. Groom Lake). In the perhaps unlikely event that Fossett wandered into that airspace, it might present problems to the Civil Air Patrol and other searchers.

Ah, that way. Well yes, you have a point there. But maybe, if the airspace is that restricted, the military were also able to track his craft.

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I'm a little rusty on my geography, but southern Nevada is pretty much sand and more sand. Unless he was spectacularly unlucky and the plane fell apart in midair, he won't be hurting for safe parking.

Given that Fossett's a guy who's been around the block a few times, I'd have a LOT of difficulty believing he'd be anywhere near restricted airspace as a part of a normal flightplan.

Western Nevada is pretty rugged.

Google Map: Yerington, Neveda

CNN

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Getting down safe is one thing. Nevada is mostly empty, so getting found (when people don't have a good idea where to look) is another.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

News reports say that he didn't file a flight plan. Unless he told someone where he's going, the searchers don't have much to go on. Nevada is big, largely empty, and often very hot. Even if he landed safely, he'd need to be found fairly quickly or dehydration would become a big factor.

I have not heard any reports of his ELT (emergency location transmitter) going off. ELTs normally activate automatically on impact (or a hard landing - don't ask me how I know). If he went down in rough terrain, the ground could be blocking the ELT signals.

Fossett is a very good pilot who no doubt has had a lot of survival training. If anyone could have survived this, he could.

From CNN
I'm guessing that "radar intelligence" includes military tracking of their airspace.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

Associated Press

Let's hope he found a dry lake -- the walk-away-from way.

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...including "a Nevada Air National Guard C-130 equipped with heat-sensing devices", according to one of TV's Talking Heads (i.e. Nancy Grace).

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