Yawn...

Today, "millionaire adventurer" (pronounced "egomaniacal plutocrat") Steve Fossett broke yet another aeronautical record. In 2002, he flew around the world in a balloon. In 2005, he flew around the world in an airplane. And now, he broke a flight distance record. Are we supposed to get excited because a rich guy can hold a plane steady and stay awake? I say that the actual achievement lies with others: namely, the engineers that designed the aircraft and the support crew that kept him in the air.

All of the records that Fossett and others of his ilk pursue are nowadays fairly meaningless. It's less a question of the pilot's skill than it is "how much money can they come up with"? Fossett's not an adventurer, he's just someone with enough money (and rich buddies like Richard Branson) to finance his publicity stunts. You want my opinion of who's a real adventurer? Mathias Rust. Sneaking through Russian airspace at the height of the Cold War and landing in Red Square? That's an adventure.