WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett called it a season Sunday, ending a second year of unsuccessfully trying to break the world's glider altitude record.
Fossett, the first man to fly a hot air balloon solo around the world, was foiled by a lack of wind and vowed to return to southern New Zealand next year to resume the glider record chase.
``It's frustrating, but this is what is involved when you are doing endeavors which require very specific weather,'' the tenacious American told The Associated Press from his Omarama flying base on South Island, 415 miles southwest of the capital, Wellington.
Fossett and co-pilot former NASA test pilot Einar Enevoldson failed twice in two days to find the mountain wind they needed to boost their glider above the current record of 14,935 meters (49,000 feet).
``The weather probably won't be good enough in the coming week'' to push the glider into higher airs, he added.
The record was set in 1986 above California's Sierra Nevada mountains by U.S. pilot Bob Harris.
Fossett said his high-performance glider and its equipment would be all set to go for the team's return next June.
The polar vortex of high-speed circulating winds occurs above southern New Zealand during the southern hemisphere's spring. To reach them, glider pilots need the escalator boost of strong mountain winds to lift them through the atmosphere to about 11,000 meters (36,000 feet).
Fossett said it was proving ``much more difficult than we thought'' to find the right weather conditions.
He expects several chances between June and September 2004 to reach their goal of soaring to 19,000 meters (62,000 feet). Their best height this year was just half that.
He hopes eventually to prove that conditions in the stratosphere can lift a specially designed glider to 30,500 meters (100,000 feet), virtually the edge of space.
Fossett and Enevoldson have been flying a German-made glider and wearing NASA space suits. The multimillionaire from Chicago wouldn't put a figure on how much he has spent so far but admitted ``It's an expensive project.''
Fossett became the first to fly a hot air balloon solo around the world in 2002 after nearly dying twice in six attempts to set that record.