Fossett approaching Africa after dicey takeoff

American adventurer Steve Fossett is soaring high above the Atlantic Ocean and closing in on the Canary Islands after a nerve-wracking take-off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Piloting the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, Fossett nearly ran out of runway at the KSC landing strip during a 7:22 a.m. departure on what promises to be the longest flight in aviation history.

Wearing a silver flight suit and stretched out in his seven-foot tubular cockpit, Fossett needed three-quarters of the three-mile runway to get his 22,000-pound aircraft off the ground. An astounding 18,200 pounds of the total weight was highly flammable jet fuel, so a blown tire or a run off the end of the runway could have resulted in a deadly aircraft inferno.

The GlobalFlyer finally got wheels up, scattering a flock of black-breasted plovers. Two of the birds struck the leading edge of the aircraft's portside wing as Fossett struggled to clear an ominous treeline just to the north of the runway.

"Take off was a bit scary to say the least," Fossett told GlobalFlyer Mission Control in London about three hours into the flight. "I had to use most of the runway to get off the ground."

Fossett was speeding down the runway at 140 mph and he would not have been able to stop in the event of a serious problem or systems failure. The ultralight, experimental aircraft is not equipped with a robust braking system. So Fossett would have required 6,000 to 7,000 feet of concrete pavement to stop in an emergency.

"This was particularly hairy as I couldn't have aborted even if I had wanted to," Fossett said. "To make matters worse, two birds hit the aircraft on takeoff."

Luckily, a chase plane saw no signs of damage and all systems on the GlobalFlyer are working as expected. The 26,160-mile flight is expected to take 80 hours, culminating with a landing at an airport outside London mid-Saturday afternoon EST.