I was referring to his penchant for pursuing world records in dangerous ways. He may not have been involved in setting a record at the time, but he was scouting for a location. I meant no disrespect toward the man or his wife. I just think people should be responsible for their own recreation expenses, especially if they are in a position to afford the cost.

It was a tragic event, and my heart goes out to his widow.

How do you consider his ventures dangerous?

He spent his own money, or was sponsored for each of his world record setting flights and events. Not one taxpayer dollar was spent on his "recreation." This was his business. He was in the business of promoting aviation.

As I remember from the time that this search was going, the Nevada Air Guard was using the SAR effort as a training mission. Other agencies were using equipment that had never been used previous to this as they had not had an opportunity to prior to this.

When someone close to home goes missing, you tend to pay attention to these types of missions. A very close friend of mine was the lead pilot for one of the Search and Rescue Mission crews for over two months.

This is a subject near and dear to my heart and I only hope that people understand that the aviation community is a very close community. We do pay for these efforts through our aviation fuel taxes, fees for our airplanes, and other fees locally. I already told you that here in Idaho all registered pilots pay into a special fund for Aviation Safety.

It's sad when someone like Steve Fossett is being portrayed as a dangerous pilot...he was not.