Search for pilot Steve Fossett March 16-22?

ApacheBob

ApacheBob

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ApacheBob
light_aircraft_fossett.jpg

Is anyone still looking for Chicago pilot Steve Fossett? I would be interested in paying for some gas if someone wanted to meet me in Reno. I could be there during the week of March 16-22. It looks like some pretty rugged terrain.
http://www.jaunted.com/maps/Flying-M-Ranch-Map
I think that he may have crashed near Cory Peak, but I am open to better hunches.
ApacheBob
 
Speaking of hunches. I keep getting this vision that he is in the Carib on a sugar sand beach with two girls for every boy.
 
ApacheBob said:
light_aircraft_fossett.jpg

Is anyone still looking for Chicago pilot Steve Fossett? I would be interested in paying for some gas if someone wanted to meet me in Reno. I could be there during the week of March 16-22. It looks like some pretty rugged terrain.
http://www.jaunted.com/maps/Flying-M-Ranch-Map
I think that he may have crashed near Cory Peak, but I am open to better hunches.
ApacheBob
Click to expand...

Hi Bob... www.stevefossett.com had the best updates during the search, and it's not been updated in a long time. I've had an 'internet watch' set on that page to give me a ping if new details are posted.

Cory Peak? NW of Shasta? What points you in that direction??
 
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TangoWhiskey said:
Hi Bob... www.stevefossett.com had the best updates during the search, and it's not been updated in a long time. I've had an 'internet watch' set on that page to give me a ping if new details are posted.

Cory Peak? NW of Shasta? What points you in that direction??
Click to expand...
Eyewitness accounts state that he departed the airport heading south. He was expected to be back around noon. A private jet was to take him and his wife to another destination later that day.
So it would have been a three hour round trip.
If he was looking for an area of flat terrain to test his high-speed surface vehicle, I was looking at Sarcobatus Flat. Departing south, he could have followed East Walker Road for a short distance, then cut toward the Sarcobatus Flat. But the aircraft may have lacked the horsepower to clear Cory Peak (10,520 feet).
It's a shot in the dark. I am hoping to link up with somebody who can give me a better guess.
But it bothers me that nobody seems to be looking.:blueplane:
ApacheBob
 
ApacheBob said:
Eyewitness accounts state that he departed the airport heading south. He was expected to be back around noon. A private jet was to take him and his wife to another destination later that day.
So it would have been a three hour round trip.
If he was looking for an area of flat terrain to test his high-speed surface vehicle, I was looking at Sarcobatus Flat. Departing south, he could have followed East Walker Road for a short distance, then cut toward the Sarcobatus Flat. But the aircraft may have lacked the horsepower to clear Cory Peak (10,520 feet).
It's a shot in the dark. I am hoping to link up with somebody who can give me a better guess.
But it bothers me that nobody seems to be looking.:blueplane:
ApacheBob
Click to expand...

I agree with what you're saying... I think we're talking about different Cory Peak's. The only one I can find is well NW of where he departed, not south then east.

It is still amazing to me that the wilderness out there is so vast and rugged that someone could go missing that long (forever, for some) despite concerted efforts to locate the individual. I do have to say that the use of high-res satellite imagery and people worldwide looking on the Internet was creative, unique, and a harbinger of things to come. Computer algorithms will likely get smart enough to pick out likely "hot spots" that warrant additional checking.
 
Bob, why does it bother you that no one seems to be looking? The guy IMHO was a great asset to GA and real modern day adventurer but there does come a poiint where one has to give it up. CAP instituted its largest search in its history to find Mr. Fossett. How long do we keep it up and at what cost.

Thats one thing that always bothered me in the JFK Jr. crash. If it were me in that Saratoga at the bottom of the ocean, My guess is I'd still be sitting there at least what ever the fish didn't eat. Would the US Navy really be sending divers down looking for anyone of us?:no:
 
You aren't going to spot from the air a guy in a plane that's a couple hundred pounds of tattered fabric sitting at the bottom of a crevice.
 
AdamZ said:
Bob, why does it bother you that no one seems to be looking? The guy IMHO was a great asset to GA and real modern day adventurer but there does come a poiint where one has to give it up. CAP instituted its largest search in its history to find Mr. Fossett. How long do we keep it up and at what cost.

Thats one thing that always bothered me in the JFK Jr. crash. If it were me in that Saratoga at the bottom of the ocean, My guess is I'd still be sitting there at least what ever the fish didn't eat. Would the US Navy really be sending divers down looking for anyone of us?:no:
Click to expand...
I am hoping to use aircraft and surface teams. I have never been to Reno and I am looking forward to visiting there for the first time. It will be an expense, but I can look at the beautiful mountains while looking for Steve. I know it will not be free.
I was not there, but I heard that the Saratoga was salvaged last year.
:blueplane:
ApacheBob
 
mikea said:
You aren't going to spot from the air a guy in a plane that's a couple hundred pounds of tattered fabric sitting at the bottom of a crevice.
Click to expand...
Many crash victims in this area have never been found. It would be incredibly fortunate to locate the crash site. The area is large and mostly unpopulated.
I am hoping for a party of eight or nine. We have 5 so far.
One person suggested looking near Grant Peak.
The missing aircraft has got lots of range, but the search area could be whittled down using deductive reasoning. He was looking for someplace to break the land speed record. He would need someplace flat. Stonewall flat? Death Valley? Chart a course between those points. Postulate where he would have detoured to avoid the highest terrain.
It was intended to be a three hour flight.
My neice intends to contact some forest service personnel for suggestions.
ApacheBob
 
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For over 30 years I have been all throughout that area by foot, car, truck, and airplane. I'm here to tell you there is nothing suitable for a landspeed record there. I am so certain of that that I consider his "search" to be misinformation. Of course there are dry lake beds out there and yes there are some which 'may' be suitable, but they have long been in use for live weapons firing or coveted by the USAF, NASA, or other. Given the expanse of R-airspace out there, I hardly expect an aircraft to be the ideal vehicle to conduct the aforementioned search.

As long we're talking about it, it would have been wiser and more efficient to use USGS topo maps, sat imagery, or GIS, (if available).

There have been so much spent in time, planning, and money to find Fossett yet apparently for naught. Good luck in your search. Enjoy the scenery.
 
This is a HUGE snow year out here in the West.

March is way to early to be looking for Steve Fossett.
 
Well, it's your time and your money.

Personally, I'd much rather fly Angel Flight missions with the gas you're going to burn. What's the point?
 
on http://www.stevefossett.com/ it states:


It is now believed that Steve Fossett was unlikely to have ventured far afield (such as crossing the Sierra Nevada range), but that he was more likely to have been on a local pleasure flight - and that he probably was not surveying sites for the upcoming landspeed record project.
 
The folks by Reno suggest waiting for warmer weather...
 
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