a former military training site with a strip long enough to accommodate a space shuttle landing -- to take off with a craft heavily laden with fuel. Fossett, 60, the first to make a solo balloon trip around the world nonstop, has claimed a number of air, land and sea records. While he made the trip alone at the controls, it did not count as a world record for circumnavigation, the Paris-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale had said in advance. Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan hold that mark for the first nonstop, unrefueled global flight in 1986 with a nine-day circumnavigation covering 26,366 miles (42,430 km). Fossett's team however had said they hoped to qualify for distance and speed records, which remain to be certified. --SP 2258 Local Time 1958 GMT
