The final question from the Voice, the one that got me through the backscatter machine, past the shoe swipe-o-meter and onto the plane, was a stunning surprise: “What color is your house?”

After Fossett's death in a private-plane crash in 2007, Hawkes stopped working on the Challenger (Fossett's widow now owns the original machine) and turned his attention to the Super Falcon.

He wants to ride a machine like a bike and fly it like a plane.