Shortly after Fossett's launching Monday his competitors sent him telegrams of congratulation.
The British balloon, called the Virgin Global Challenger, is to be flown by Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Atlantic Airways; Per Lindstrand, chairman of Lindstrand Balloons Ltd. of Oswestry, England, and an Irish balloonist, Rory McCarthy.
Branson and Lindstrand, who have set several ballooning records, were the first pilots of hot-air balloons to cross both the Atlantic Ocean, in 1987, and the Pacific, in 1991.
Lindstrand said that because of unfavorable weather patterns over England he and his colleagues had decided to launch their Virgin Global Challenger from a military airfield at Marrakech, Morocco.
To move the big crew capsule, balloon and accessories, the British group chartered a Beluga transport plane &MD; a modified Airbus 300 similar to the Pregnant Guppy aircraft used by NASA to transport large rocket components. The flight to Morocco is scheduled for Friday, and Lindstrand said the balloon launching would probably take place a day or so later.
Branson, chairman of the multifaceted Virgin Group, which includes Virgin Atlantic Airways, believes that his competitor, Fossett, faces grave risks.
``Because his capsule is not pressurized,'' Branson said in an interview, ``Steve will have to stay at around 20,000 feet, which is usually well below the core of the jet stream. That could slow him down a lot. We will be at 30,000 to 35,000 feet, where our chances of riding the high-speed jet stream are much better.
``Steve is incredibly brave, and if anyone should beat us, I'd rather it was he.''
The Dutch team, led by Henk Brink, recently tested the inflation of its Unicef Flyer balloon at Cape Kennedy in NASA's huge Vehicle Assembly Building, where space shuttles are prepared for flight. Brink, who intends to launch his balloon from Nijmegen, the Netherlands, is a helicopter instructor and veteran balloonist.
In 1986, he, his wife, Evelien, and William Hageman, a Dutch fighter pilot, became the first European balloonists to cross the Atlantic; so precise was their navigation that they landed within a few miles of Brink's home in the Netherlands.
Although balloons must travel in the same direction as the wind that carries them along, a pilot can navigate to some extent by changing altitude to seek wind headed in the desired direction. Even a small change in altitude can result in a large change in direction.
The Unicef Flyer flight suffered a setback Dec. 26 when its third crew member, Wouter Bakker, resigned from the flight crew ``for personal reasons.''
Days before the expected launching this week, Brink said in an interview that he had advertised for a replacement, stipulating that the third crew member should be an airline captain.
``We're down to three candidates,'' Brink said Friday, ``and all of them are completely familiar with our navigation and communication equipment. For the launch and landing, I will do the piloting.''
All three teams are flying Rozier balloons &MD; a type that has achieved many long-distance records in recent years.
A modern Rozier is kept aloft by helium gas, but to add extra lift, the balloon is compartmentalized and the lower part can be filled with hot air from a gas burner. This enables the balloon to maintain altitude at night, when cold air and the lack of sunlight cools the helium and lessens its lifting power.
Since the first manned balloon flight in 1783 by Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis Francois Laurent d'Arlandes in a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, many balloonists have attempted round-the-world flights, but all have failed, and some have died trying.
Five unsuccessful attempts were made by a single team led by Larry Newman of Scottsdale, Ariz., in his Earthwinds balloon before Newman abandoned his efforts one year ago.
The Rozier balloon is named after its inventor, who was forced to use inflammable hydrogen in his 18th-century version, since a century was to pass before the discovery of nonflammable helium. Rozier was killed in 1785 while trying to cross the English Channel; his hydrogen-and-hot-air hybrid balloon caught fire and crashed.
From that time until 1960, balloonists relied almost exclusively on hydrogen or helium for lift, since hot-air burners were regarded as too dangerous.