After a century at the heart of the aviation industry, Kansas may help make history again.

The GlobalFlyer — an airplane designed by Burt Rutan, father of SpaceShipOne — may use a former Air Force runway in Salina as the launching point in January for its attempt at an aviation first: A solo, nonstop flight around the world without refueling.

Officials with Virgin Atlantic, the company sponsoring the flight, said Tuesday that they were awaiting Federal Aviation Administration approval to start the flight in Kansas.

“We think it would be fantastic for it to take off from (Salina), but we’re not making an announcement as of yet,” said Lori Levin, a spokeswoman for Virgin.

Tim Rogers, executive director of the Salina Airport Authority, declined comment Tuesday. But Salina officials invited reporters to a news conference at 10 a.m. today “to announce an aerospace event of historic proportions and international importance.”

“It’s a historic flight,” Levin said. “It’s one of the last challenges in aviation to fly around the world solo, nonstop.”

Concerns

The 3,500-pound plane would carry nearly 20,000 pounds of fuel for the flight. That means it needs a runway at least two miles long to take off — and Salina Municipal Airport, which was Schilling Air Force Base until 1965, fits the bill.

“We need a very long runway, because of the fuel on the plane,” Levin said. “Basically Salina or Edwards (Air Force Base in California) are two places we can go.”

The Globalflyer may begin an attempted around-the-world flight from the municipal airport in Salina. An announcement is expected today.

Rutan also designed SpaceShipOne, which earlier this year became the first privately funded craft to achieve spaceflight. He earlier designed Voyager, the airplane that in the 1980s made the first nonstop unrefueled flight around the world.

But Voyager carried two pilots. GlobalFlyer will carry only one, a test of the pilot’s endurance and aircraft technology — and a possible reason to keep the flight out of Kansas.

The mission is expected to last 70 hours or so, plenty of time for pilot Steve Fossett to become exhausted. FAA officials might decide people on the ground would be less endangered if the last, sleep-deprived leg of the flight were mostly over the Pacific Ocean instead of land.

That might force the GlobalFlyer to take off and land in California’s Mojave Desert.

“They have concerns about the last leg of the flight being over land,” Levin said. “We don’t have those concerns, but we have to defer to the FAA at the end of the day.”

6News video: Kansas to be part of aviation history Theresa Day, director of the Kansas Aviation Museum, talks about the upcoming flight Scaled Composites Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer Saline Airport Authority

Praise, skepticism

Kansas aviation experts had mixed reactions to the GlobalFlyer effort.

Teresa Day, director of the Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita, was excited by the prospect.

“My first thought really is that any event that can bring positive attention to Kansas aviation should be welcomed,” she said. “I guess it’s just saying man can accomplish another thing that, when the Wright Brothers first flew 100 years ago, they never could have envisioned.”

But Mark Ewing, chair of the Aerospace Engineering Department at Kansas University, was skeptical the GlobalFlyer flight would prove useful.

“It poses some new dangers, because you don’t have any backup on (the pilot) falling asleep,” Ewing said. “It sounds to me like it’s a PR thing.”

A story in Tuesday’s New York Times newspaper questioned whether the GlobalFlyer would be included in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Day, director of the Kansas Aviation Museum, had other ideas for the craft’s final resting place — assuming the flight is successful.

“If it does launch out of Salina,” she said, laughing, “I can tell you someplace else that would be willing to take it.”