Solo Flight On Last Leg

Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett played down a serious problem with his experimental aircraft's fuel system and began the last leg of a nonstop around-the-world solo flight early Thursday.

Fossett and his flight crew agreed to keep the GlobalFlyer in the air rather than abandon the record-setting attempt, which must be done without refueling.

On Wednesday, Fossett flew over Hawaii and headed toward California. The pilot took time out to talk with reporters, telling them in a conference call that he was tired because he had only been catnapping so he could watch the plane's instruments.

Fossett sounded more upbeat, though, than he did earlier in the day after discovering the fuel problem.

"I have every hope of making it to Salina," Fossett said.

Project director Paul Moore said wind conditions and the fuel situation improved between Japan and Hawaii, prompting Fossett to tell mission control, "Let's go for it."

Mission control determined the plane conserved fuel because of strong tail winds and had more than 3,200 pounds left, enough to finish the global trek.

"He's comfortably got enough fuel and enough wind behind him to meet the coast. From that point onwards, if he does run low on fuel, he's got a number of alternate airports at which he could land safely," Moore told the BBC overnight.

"The plane is slowing up because as it gets lighter and lighter, it goes slower and slower and it's also got some headwinds, but despite that, we believe he's got just about enough [fuel] to make it," financial backer Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic, told CBS News Early Show co-anchor René Syler.

Moore estimated Fossett would touch down in Salina midday Thursday. "There's a cautious optimism."

And if not, "he's one of the world's greatest glider pilots," Branson joked.

By the time the decision was made for Fossett to continue, he had traveled nearly 19,000 miles of the 23,000-mile flight.

The fuel system problem was discovered early Wednesday.

Moore said fuel sensors in the 13 tanks differed from readings of how quickly the custom-built plane's single jet engine was burning fuel. Moore said the crew had been forced to assume that 2,600 pounds of the original 18,100 pounds of fuel "disappeared" early in the flight.

It was not clear whether the problem was with the instruments that track how much fuel remains or if some fuel had been lost because of a leak, Fossett's team said.

"Since the fuel's gone equally all throughout four tanks, we think the likelihood is that it finished itself out," Branson said. "When he gets back we'll get a better idea."

Fossett, 60, already holds the record for flying solo around the globe in a balloon, as well as dozens of other aviation and sailing records.

The first nonstop global flight without refueling was made in 1986 by Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan, brother of GlobalFlyer designer Burt Rutan.