Steve Fossett and flight plans

For my loyal readers, if any, I'd like to squish a nanomeme that is thriving amid the Steve Fossett search. Here's an example:

"The search has been complicated by the fact that the 63-year-old veteran of numerous record-breaking solo airplane and balloon flights failed to file a flight-plan for what was supposed to be a routine three-hour jaunt."

This is flat-out wrong. A flight plan for an area flight (that is, one where the origination and destination airports are the same) would not specify anything other than the name of the airport and how long the flight was expected to be. Here's how the phone call would go:

"Hello, I'd like to file a VFR flight plan. Tail number N240R. Decathlon slant golf. 100 knots, leaving from Flying M Ranch near Smith Valley. Cruise altitude 2,500 feet AGL. Destination Flying M Ranch. Time enroute two hours. Five hours of fuel. One person onboard. Contact telephone xxx-xxx-xxxx. Aircraft is blue with yellow. OK, thanks, bye."

This helps explain why he didn't file a flight plan -- because it would be nearly useless. Flight plans don't help rescuers when your route is imprecise. The purpose of Fossett's flight was to scout out ground locations for a car, so the route was necessarily imprecise.

At this point, all we know is that the plane is probably within a circle of radius 500 nautical miles (5 hours of fuel @ 100 knots), centered at the Flying M Ranch (only "probably" because of the chance of winds, UFOs, and government coverups). That is unfortunately over a million square miles, and the area wouldn't have been any smaller if Fossett had filed a flight plan.