1986 Dec. 14-23
The Rutan Voyager was the first aircraft to travel around the world without refueling. It began its record breaking flight on December 14, 1986 and landed 9 days later on December 23rd having covered 26,366 statute miles on 1150 gallons of gas.
The USS Nautilus.
Discounting orbital spacecraft, the first and to date only aircraft to have performed this difficult and dangerous ( gas-miser) feat was the Rutan Voyager. Only one was built and it was retired after the mission. Mobil oil was something of a sponsor, oddly,.
Burt Rutan is an American aerospace engineer. He designed the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling called the Voyager. He also designed the sub-orbital space-plane called SpaceShipOne, that won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004. He has also designed many other aircraft and has an aerospace company called Scaled Composites.
At full speed 11.5 hours plus refueling time.
Burt Rutan of Scale Composites is the best man to speak to .His company built a plane called Voyager? I think,that flew around the world without landing about 10 years ago.
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Would like you travel around the world with
The USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the US Navy's first nuclear powered submarine.
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan is an American aerospace engineer who designed the Voyage aircraft that was the first to fly right round the world without stopping or refueling.
Consider the plane's top speed as 3600kmph. The earth's diameter is 12000 km. With refueling time and other things it may be at least 4 hours to go across the world.
Aircraft flight is only limited by the fuel supply, and in theory could be extremely long with aerial refueling. The longest practical flight would be a non-stop flight around the world. In December 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew a specially-built airplane called the Voyager around the world without landing. The aircraft is at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. The longest current aircraft is the Antonov An-225, a cargo aircraft built in the Soviet Union in 1998. It is 84 meters (275 ft) in length. Only one plane exists, used in Russia for extremely large and heavy cargo transport.