Fossett, a Stanford University graduate with a master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, went to Chicago to work in the securities business and ultimately founded his own firm, Marathon Securities.

He went missing on Tuesday after taking off in a single-engine plane the day before to scout locations for a land-speed record .

Last year, Mr Fossett smashed the record for flying further than anyone in history.

In 2002, Fossett became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon. In two weeks, his balloon flew 19,428.6 miles around the Southern Hemisphere. The record came after five previous attempts — some of them spectacular and frightening failures.

It is among dozens of firsts claimed by Fossett in his life as an adventurer, which he embarked on after a successful career in securities. He set marks for speed or distance in balloons, airplanes, gliders, sailboats — even cross-country skis and an airship, according to his Web site.

Fossett has climbed some of the world’s best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He also swam the English Channel in 1985, placed 47th in the Iditarod dog sled race in 1992, participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race in 1996 and broke the round-the-world sailing record by six days in 2004.

In 1995, Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, landing in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Fossett was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July. He told a crowd gathered at the Dayton Convention Center in Ohio that he would continue flying.

“I’m hoping you didn’t give me this award because you think my career is complete, because I’m not done,” Fossett said.

Fossett said he planned to go to Argentina in November in an effort to break a glider record.

In March 2005, he became the first person to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling. He and a co-pilot also claim to have set a world glider altitude record of 50,671 feet during a flight in August 2006 over the the Andes Mountains.

He flew 26,389.3 miles in the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer and the record-breaking journey lasted 76 hours and 45 minutes, beating the former record of 25,361 miles set by the Breitling Orbiter balloon in 1999.

Mr Fossett’s record journey in the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer was sponsored by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, who is also known for his daredevil record attempts and followed Mr Fossett in a support plane.

The 63-year-old, famed for his numerous solo flights around the globe by airplane and balloon, is understood to be unaccounted for since Monday.

Mr Fossett took off in a single engine Bellanca at 8.45am yesterday at a private airstrip at the Hilton Ranch in western Nevada but did not return as scheduled.

A friend later reported him missing, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Maryland.

So get the ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL Google Pack with Google Earth right now !!!

Be careful not to fly too high though !!!

You just might end up lost in Google Space.

To start Open Google Earth 4.4 and press Ctrl+Alt+A (if you’re running OS X it’s Command+Option+A; some people have reported that Ctrl+A or Ctrl+Windows+A work when the standard Ctrl+Alt+A does not)

If you are struggling to get into flight simulator mode then follow the instructions below to manually enable flight simulator. After enabling, go Tools -> Enter Flight Simulator.

Windows:

Download FlightSim.reg, double click on it and restart Google Earth.

Linux:

echo 1 > .googleearth/Registry/google/googleearthplus/User/flightsim/isena

Here’s what Marco says :

Some time last week, Google expanded Google Earth with Google Sky. As fascinating as Google Sky is, that’s not the focus of this post. Along with the latest update comes a hidden feature of which I cannot seem to find any other information about. It’s not in the release notes and a search on Google produces no results. Seems Google have done one of their unpublicised updates they’re becoming well-known for.

What I’m talking about is a flight simulator embedded within GE. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? If the thought amazes you as much as it did me, then might have run off and tried it for yourself. But there’s a problem. Remember what I said above – it’s a hidden feature!

First of all you’ll have to install the latest version of GE. Once you’ve started it all up, explored Google Sky a bit, then all you have to do is hit Ctrl+Alt+A (if you’re running OS X it’s Command+Option+A; some people have reported that Ctrl+A or Ctrl+Windows+A work when the standard Ctrl+Alt+A does not). If all goes as planned the following dialog should pop up:

As you can see from the screenshot there are only two aircraft to choose from at this stage. The F16 I find is much more enjoyable for a quick stint as it goes much faster than the SR22. Try both though as they’re quite different flights. Then you get to pick a start position. The default option of Kathmandu runway gives you in the following scene:

Before going wild pressing random keys like I did, have a look at the controls. Sidetracking a bit, you’ll notice that the top of that page gives proof that Google purposefully hid this feature:

Once you have entered flight simulator mode for the first time, you can re-enter the mode by choosing Tools > Enter Flight Simulator.

Moving on though, you can get a quick start by holding Page Up for a few seconds to increase to maximum thrust (thrust meter is the left bar of the lower-left meters). Once you’ve accelerated to a sufficient velocity use the arrow keys to take-off. The keys are in reverse as one would expect with any flight simulator, so use the down arrow to take-off. When you’ve gained enough altitude then stabalise the aircraft to a straight flight path.

It can be rather tricky to get the hang of as the controls are quite sensitive. However, the same can be said of any reasonable flight simulator as that’s the nature of flying. After a little fiddling around and once you’re stable you should see a nice view of the Himalayas out on the horizon:

I guess this next screenshot should have come before the last, since it’s what most people will see first. However, this is not as bad as it may appear. Although I admittedly was very poor when I started out, I learned with a little practice. This shot is actually of a controlled upside-down flight. If I was really out of control I wouldn’t have been able to capture such a nice shot!

To round up on the screenshots, here are a couple quick ones from flying over Frankfurt and New York. They’re not all that fascinating to look at, especially when compared to the real experience.

Overall, I think they’ve done a good job considering (assuming?) this is their first release. There are several things missing though. A major thing is that you don’t get a view of the aircraft at all. It would be nice if they could add several views, including a view from within the cockpit with full controls, etc. The controls are covered well. It works with joysticks, however I couldn’t find one to test with. The mouse control is very effective although switching between mouse and keyboard I found a little poor as it would jerk the aircraft.

Unfortunately with poor bandwidth in South Africa most of the scenes didn’t get a chance to fully load before going out of view. I’m sure this won’t be an issue with a decent line. Even without it loading in full it was still very usable, which is a big plus!

The airports are covered fairly well, with almost all major airports included in the list. Perhaps a search option could be added to search for airports, since all the data should already be available as it’s displayed in the main Google Earth view. However, the locations might not have sufficient precision. I think the aircraft selection needs to be improved drastically before this is fully launched.

All-in-all I think it’s a great feature Google has added to one of their top products. I still remember the days when Microsoft Flight Simulator was considered so cool and that you had to pay for! With a bit more work this has lots of potential to greatly surpass other flight simulators.

UPDATE: If you are struggling to get into flight simulator mode then follow the instructions below to manually enable flight simulator. After enabling, go Tools -> Enter Flight Simulator.

Windows:

Download FlightSim.reg, double click on it and restart Google Earth.

Linux:

echo 1 > .googleearth/Registry/google/googleearthplus/User/flightsim/isena