Around the World in 40 Days

[Music] [Music] it was without a doubt the longest period of terror that I've ever experienced in my flying career I am the highest I love always risking danger if the following pilars were some of the most terrifying hours of my life these little plays are designed to fly in conditions that are good but you know you can't do a trip with us without pushing the boundaries a little bit so we had to push and push we did [Music] [Music] [Music] mics are flying 12 years before me and he was a kind of aviation here in this country by the time that I meet him because he was the first ever South African aviation world champion he's done some of the most substantial adventures in that aircraft that they ought to do and he's famous first he and Olivia Oberth flew from South America to South Africa in a wedge of microlight in a track it was an unusual route because you can't violate ship track across the Atlantic Ocean so what they did is they started in Argentina flew up across South America across Central America across the states up into Canada they've ended the longest fight ever innovation of microlight over the pair casts in the Arctic Circle joslin on to Scotland and in a few down through the African continent to South Africa that was an historic trip that was the longest anyone had ever flown in that kind of everything what I like about James is his craziness slightly panicked I think I would tend to be the one that's a little bit being measured especially when it comes to risk I'm sure James tends to just push it out there a little bit much for me once in a while start getting ready he says right great years ago I guess James came to a party at my house dressed in a skirt and immediately had a good connection with him and we started getting on well we've gained good mates Ray's place where we can sit with me bullying in aircraft I was running out of money I also needed somebody to help me in the business and James was looking for something to do and can business partners and then the back race goes down flat and aerodynamics is a difficult science it's half science to have art in fact so when you've built an aeroplane until you actually take off you don't really know how the thing is gonna fly with all the science in the world you don't really know eventually after a year of design and board we got our prototype airborne what a fantastic moment the airplane flew better in Mike I had imagined in our wildest dreams [Music] the idea for their own road trip hatched one evening while we were doing test flats Mac said you know this airplane flies so beautifully we have to take a tour skosh the world's greatest air show but how do we get it there you know in the obvious way to get near a plane anyway is to find there but they're not perhaps so obvious because to compete this journey we have to find the longest legs ever recorded in such a small airplane I had a dream about flying around the world for many years so when the discussion came up about flight to Oshkosh I said let's just keep going we did some calculations will show that in theory we could modify our development but it's up to the extreme mr. Sheedy flocked on the world we don't think is evil mean anyone redesigned boats and flew you're near a pen around the world and here we are only 67 days before they reverse butterfly still towing the airplane that we get above there to get a flower on the level so you know I always like challenge flying around the world may have been a dream for Mike but for me it became more like an obsession the fan was to compete the build of the airplane and get us in the air with enough time for proper testing before he left though he started pulling in Fenster unexpected challenges kept on moving our first flight closer and closer to the day that we have to depart we have any hope of making it to the ostrich issue [Music] see it competed with how many days to flowing James 1 months ago so we'd leave and hopefully nine days it'll be fun they'd be good I like a deadly optimist because as an optimist you tend to do more with rumor we then built entire fuselage the tail undercarriage all the wiring instrumentation and everything else in the last few weeks before we left like some offenses one it's 441a it's not all a sweeping Ganga with the oshkosh a show just two weeks away we brought in a friend of ours John is the kind of guy that can build just about anything he sets his mind to where do development stuff make things with my hands and then take stuff from concept to reality so I was able to help him quickly get the plane ready we literally work day and night avenged Eve myself my dog would just sleep in the hangar [Music] because it was such a rush we hadn't actually been able to test fly around the world plan to the extent that the Altair even to the extent that we were required by law to you what I'm doing here is I'm signing my will before we go just in case things go wrong would you witness it to me Mike guarantee anything [Music] our state's going to be seeing your estate subsequently become aware that this could have been a nightmare for Mike because he was flying with a guy who who wanted to flower on the world's badly and if I had you take some chances to fly around the world I wasn't about to blink my confided in me any cities his biggest concern with James was just that he was but too gung-ho and would go off he'd fly into anything that Mike Blythe there must be a very brave person you know not to UF around the world but your father was me he didn't want a dime but a lot of things planned for the future it's because of the weaknesses in my character that crave recognition and and of course those things make you make bad decisions I went into the so variation Authority a day before we left to obtain the necessary documents they were on our side as a tenant because it wasn't an advance with South African ideation so they wanted to give it to me [Music] and I remember the day they were gonna leave and we try to put it off for office we weren't a hundred percent ready that morning when Mike arrived everyone is saying okay so you ready he kept saying to them he said you're never really ready for something like this tonight is our big big big test it'll be the first time the planes flying into the night and you've never flying the airplane for more than two and a half hours in a single stretch I am very nervous this is the most dangerous takeoff of the trip because it will never have taken off as heavy as we will be today our hardest you wanna come you want to come with me but you don't like he replaced you it's my darling wife show man we've been together 21 years we gonna wait for me are you gonna watch on the Internet what's that now tears or what hey Cheyenne you see this is why it's quite hard to leave what it does dude gives me a bloody good reason to get back and to get back alive what is this early it's a baby bird this radedi to take with him hello could I find a flat pan beats the Civil Aviation Authority be horrified tonight okay aircraft identification is really uniform tango alpha Foxtrot that when we took off for the first long leg the airplane had in fact never had full fill tanks it's called a sling we had never taken off at max was called maximum we'll have waited it's a light sport aircraft so we didn't actually know for sure whether she would take off at all it's literally one continuous fact we'd also never flown of nights yes that's right it's a very long leg right behind the seat accepting the life jackets which already to top the back [Music] eventually that time arrived if we walked with him to the play and they got in and lost goodbyes here we go it was very emotional these guys were going off and we didn't know if we were gonna see them again drop care so he climbed into the airplane for the first time fully loaded to attempt the longest straight line flight ever in an aeroplane as small as ours [Music] when he was worried about the sings all equators she took off sooner than we expected but still there was a lot of tension in the beginning because we were climbing out we were heading towards hills we were bout to cross the border the Sun was going down both of us were monitoring the navigation and talking on the radio and we were both working you know in those moments you don't have time to talk or think about things because you've got a serious job to do but as the Sun started setting suddenly this moment sort of came over us that we realized we're on our way might turn to me and he just started we were sitting there like to kind of school kids like hunting each other there was this incredible release of being able being on the trip and being away I mean it took about 10 minutes before he hit the phase crisis almost immediately contact the vasana air traffic control refined Saturday how long 18 and a half hours you know they never had anything like us before but we persuaded they met with for real they instead look you are on a VFR flight plan and which is a visual flattery spot plan which is much simpler planning arrangement and you are not entitled to fly over Botswana on a visual flight plan so they said look you may not into the country what do you think for those wrong the world flax one of the pilots had to have what's called an eye of our writing an instrument flag writing has to be entitled to fly an aeroplane in a white art in bad weather when you can't see anything at all only on instruments Mike was working so hard that he didn't really have time to get an eyeful writing in fact mark it and he got his night writing the day before we left I got my four rating the day before that the truth is they might $7,000 any my 700 hours of flying the airplane neither of us had found it not all by instruments before the greater problem arose and we discovered why you have to fly over books one of the IFI pen is so little electricity my son he's so dark that if it's an evening without a moon but he was you actually can't see the horizon are you unable to fly by reference to the earth we learned to learn about the aircraft with these instruments who couldn't doom them enough it was like being in a fish bar where this reflection and so we couldn't see out at all this was now a kind of a climax Mike and James are on their way we've been working there not for how long and tonight we're gonna party there was a track on the plane which loud you'd gone to the website and see where Mike and James were and so all night partying stopping every now and again and going and checking out what's happening cool that's cool carry on party [Music] we then discovered that the GPS every six minutes or solid tips was fishing off so every time the GPS went off the water palette was virtual and the airplane would just kind of go its own direction it spontaneously we later discover that the problem was caused by the tracker being incorrectly installed [Music] there were so many times when the tracker would go off for a while you you know we were so much work so late and did things when we were really exhausted just because we had to then that little dot stopped for a while I would think did I tighten that arm on the thing as much as I should have we decided right in the beginning that at all times one of us would be away really properly awake while the other one was sleeping and it was my turn it was about 3:00 in the morning or something like that I was exhausted halfway through that night I was sleeping and the GPS restorff switching the autopilot off and Mike as it turns out was also napping in my sleep I felt something strange I kind of felt something shift I open my eyes and the first thing I saw was that the artificial horizon on this instrument wasn't flat as it should have been but it was lying vertical we were essentially in a spiral dive towards the ground [Music] [Applause] [Music] the 20-hour days & all-nighters that led up to our departure taken their toll because the lesson for us and how quickly things can go wrong in a light aircraft if you lose your concentration [Music] [Music] in Central Africa our Crysta generated much interest both at home and internationally so one of the first things that we needed to do on all our stops was update our website if you're looking for the perfect place to ease off after months of minimum Supermax temptation its Auto mazes - so relaxed that we need to even edit our passports it's a beanie epitome of friendly Africa and it put us in a very positive frame of mind [Music] connected with changing events before even got out of the plane [Music] [Music] when the all morning the breeze touched the nineties and abuse of energy and a commercial images were how much and they also the previous evening when he walked a video camera [Music] [Music] [Music] these words and I speak you might have a little bit more history deport when you travel after our night in jail we just wanted to get the hell out of here but we couldn't find any fuel we heard that they had F guests the high-octane aviation fuel which would have been perfect for the record-breaking flight we were about to embark on I walked around the back to weigh the fuel bouncers were up to find nobody there nobody on my walk back to the plane I walked past this guy I was sitting in the shade out there having a cigarette and I asked him I'm looking for fuel containers you know I wanna go to the fuel station or when he had fuel and he said he's got some containers I walked with him into this field and we stopped there and he started to move some soil out the way and out of this in a hole in the ground came out for fuel containers [Music] we clean them as best we could with water to get the sand out and we had started to this lift cub backers and forwards in a borrowed car to the local petrol station and all we could find was leaded low quality 93 octane fuel stange is fuel to disgusting stuff Teddy's huge like I don't know where it was in the bottom it like like somebody had got sick in it or something you know with a next Lane for 4000 kilometers away this didn't inspire much confidence who quality wasn't our only worry our GPS and autopilot were quirky the tracker was malfunctioning and then there was the radio because an HF radio that can send and receive over long distances is both expensive and heavy we decided not to bother with one all we had was the line-of-sight VHF radio we knew that we'd have 40 minutes of radio communication art and 40 minutes in Jubilee at the other side of the Atlantic and 22 hours of silence in between if there was no end with a tailwind please for the he'd ruined we wouldn't make it so James the Atlantic crossing it looks like you are gonna get a slight headwind for the first four hours they didn't have a support crew that had attempted very close friend of James he's are so competent in many aspects of management sir if anything was to go wrong Tim would be the man he was also the kind of weather station say it was something dark full about whether he would get as much information speak to them and they would make a decision on that but you know James wins on your only concern here you can see the lightning strikes and the reason why using that is because of that and those big tall things across all he brought us they mean lightning and they mean windy we've been warned about the higher currents or electrical storms of the topics storms like these had been known to bring down planes much larger in fact an air must have been lost in this very region of the Atlantic not so many months back considering what we were up against as pilots we should never return to the crossing but as adventurers come what may we were gonna do it [Music] at this time of the day isn't it - yeah it has been a long day bye come here escape cut four hours last night fighting with the police in Conakry yeah we just take it off for the longest gospel we've got over the history of mankind at sunset the enormity of what we were attempting finally sank in we were less than three hours into our flight with more than 20 to go if we had a problem there would be no way for us to land accepting the cold Atlantic we started feeling very alone I began to feel the need to at least make it a team to raise somebody on the radio what we could do was communicate with other aircraft within a few hundred kilometers as our route would intersect with the flight paths of intercontinental alanis James thought it was a waste of time [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we were completely alive something went wrong only hope was our friends back home following their tiny blip across the screen [Music] [Music] well there was a long night ahead I was feeling pretty relaxed I mean we'd only had a couple of minor problems the plane had basically proven it could handle these long flights a few hours later it began to turn into a nightmare [Music] first we thought it was just another small glitch but as the hours went by we weren't so sure anymore do we start a panic do we go into the initial stage of search and rescue and things go through your mind you think is that that is that the end of this picture I mean it was difficult not to think the worst thanks very much indeed okay I'll let everyone know thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] now feel like a student again it's such a feeling I mean brilliant is there firstly there's the immense sense of relief it's a swing improving a soft capable of helping us realize our dreams top of this came the indescribable sense of freedom the truth is we had no ground trees waiting for us no hotel bookings in but for Josh no commitments to be anywhere at any particular time we felt the sobriquet just hop into the plane and fly anywhere in the world our next destination for instance was supposed to be Georgetown in Guiana that our Brazilian fans told us to be a bureaucratic nightmare anyway so we changed our course so here's Virgin Islands he stayed kind of like the sound another great pleasure was to bump into aviators in his different locations in the Virgin Islands for instance we encountered some guys restoring an old Fiji 18 was the first time they ran those engines in 20 years [Music] five-thirty you stay for about five hours good yeah so done how's that really ended up staying with you last night yeah that's right because we wanted you to not have to go a hotel or something and see Florida so what happened is when we landed yesterday at full piss it was a South African flag an American flag on the runway and there was dawn of season to meet us unexpected by us of course completely and they see doesn't take off behind us and follow us in all serious - a little airfield near our home dönitz you were really good to us they were both pilots and they'd been following us on our websites don't worry you're not worried about taking us into that storm yesterday well of course it wasn't there when we took off at port beers yes so it they pop up real fast so they're just thousands of thunderstorms usually every day all across Florida we get a Dodger you know what I'll fly through them today we're a long way to you guys yeah when you arrive at Oshkosh in an airplane unlike any other airport in the world you don't speak back to air traffic control because it doubles obviously the amount of talk on radio there isn't it crafted I can see it there's another one in 1800 so what you can do is get him behind those two guys from a distance out of Oshkosh they've got a bunch of air traffic controllers on sunjai's line back looking upwards and he's got talked to you and you need to identify ourselves if necessary by wailing you in here [Music] why is lining up on to their lineup for the and discover that the runway has got dots on a huge big colorful circles and they'll say to you yellow RV and on the purple dot the airplane behind you sits no 182 laying on the ground don't say fixedly you're landing simultaneously on the same runway before other aircraft there's something that I don't think you would ever do anywhere else the military star you put on the brakes and then you tack off the runways because you can [Music] the organizer had heard about our trip and they had given us a place of honor right at the seem to Oshkosh show I saw that we're gonna text you right past Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic mothership v bus a380 on the other side so we were given this incredible kind of product places tiny little yellow aeroplane [Music] [Music] Oshkosh is an incredible American spectacle if the world's greatest air shine it's the busiest aerodrome in the world busier than Heathrow for the seven-day period of Oshkosh 10,000 American families arrive at the airshow in the own aircraft they parked the aircraft in a field and they camp underneath the wing if you ever go to our Scott's you want to fly in it's a different experience this is the most wonderful feeling to arrive it was incredibly late it's the celebration of aviation [Music] this was the longest stop in our quest to get around but it seems mercy may have arrived that was time to leave again and tingle alkopops kappa hours late time and then to get home for you all right well you guys have a safe way home with the singing and especially the crossing of the Atlantic impressed the crowns but not nearly so much as she'd impress us we were falling more and more lovely morning 10,000 miles not a single Ozma [Music] but there was plenty that could still go wrong after all we weren't even halfway around when you ever see something like this my goodness where is that we intended spending three days in Los Angeles but what happened was there was this huge American in the Pacific that was moving up from the south up towards away James I'm you I reckon you gotta cut your stay in that a short you've got to get out of there now Felicia's path will intersect and I've got a dive instantly over Hawaii so you want to get off yeah but by then it won't be a hurricane but it'll still be a really violent storm do I get on alive on the mid-morning which means we must leave today it just never ends okay yeah that's about right god I gotta thanks foot jazz huh so we had to make a decision do we do we wait for the Huracan to pass very sorry Felicia who do we try and get across to Hawaii before it right now 11 a.m. Thursday and our routes the runs I've seen about like it I would say this thing is turning this way so I reckon if we just dive it a little bit south okay and then likely to get a slingshot around the moon people did say to us listen you know if you really think you're not gonna make it the further south you go you may pick up the sing tale of hurricane Felicia wait until I turn peanuts [Music] for a pledge 17 eyes and a never-ending search here is it can be a yeah there it is and good [Music] we worked so hard your focus mirror we need to gauge your [ __ ] turn on five you're living on the edge there are raised to the time you can take it off [Music] [Applause] I realized that our position on Maori Island was through the center of the earth almost opposite our home back in South Africa in fact the point exactly under which we were sitting is a place called queue island in botswana on the so assault pen one of my favorite places in the whole world Cuba is the most peaceful place that I've encountered in my travels thinking about it from the exact opposite side of the penis' made me feel quite emotional I mean this was after all the father's place that I could get from home but rather than feeling homesick I was energized by the fact it can our little plane máquinas seemed to the world at our fingertips and I felt excited about the next leg of our journey across the Pacific the part of the world that neither Michael I had ever seen before all the flying over the Pacific was they did still see I could imagine you know what it must be like to be a sailor where you don't have your own power in the early days and you're just inching your way across this absolutely massive expanse of the earth it's the third or more of the total circumference of the earth the other thing over the Pacific Ocean is an islands you know these desert islands of your dreams they're not routine or 20 or 50 there are thousands of these islands and they have the most magnificent pure white or golden beaches you can see where the reef runs English as your equal marine blue and nobody they just nobody and you think damn fine floats on this plain old land has been a week here but it's so inaccessible that you really can't get the I suppose and issued a lot of money majora is the capital of the Marshall Islands which is ranked as the world's most endangered nation due to flooding from climate change as we flew in we could see why you're pointing your face or welcome Huntington Beach I can see the beach he's very exotic I mean it feels very far away one of the nice things about a trip like this is that if you are on the go and you're on your own you are inherently free of a whole lot of the constraints of your own everyday life and the everyday life of people in the world we have mass 17 Beach the end of the ride at the end of the island the end of the island it looks like a little though that is nobody here and of course you become more and more engaged in their feeling until it was quite nice to strip off naked and run up and on the beach and to feel free of the constraints or the places where we were [Music] on these long flights we listen our free liners [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we continue to cross the Pacific with a series of island hops never spending much more than a day in each place at each new airport once the plane was parked and serviced we quickly found a place to stay before grabbing a few hours to do a rush to get violent [Music] we were having fun but I'll say it was feeling more and more like literally two steps cheers guys yes I guess you could say we were starting to feel the pull of home just taking photographs that we can remember later these incredible places if you come to you in that and you're just kind of looking through literally like incre an island [Music] it was a constant debate between Mike and I whether to spend more time in his place we'll move on the choice was always to move on and although we did manage to grab some off time and as long crossing of the Pacific we left ourselves very little time to relax by the time we got to Kuala Lumpur my energy levels were getting pretty Sept our visit to the cities seemed to go by in a flash almost like we're in a dream you know my rock climb and I've seen often over nights hanging I wanna put on more some piece of gear unannounced I've seen bad weather and done extreme sports [Music] the difference between this trip and some of the other things that have come was that although I didn't feel terrified that I was going to lose my life for something was gonna go wrong in the next in the next instance ham there was a long slow building up of anxiety and of stress in fact right throughout the trip and ended and it increased because I felt it emotionally things go wrong in airplanes the way that turns bad and you don't expect it or you can make a mistake I mean you can't make a mistake excited to feel this kind of very immediate sense of the odds are stacking up something I've never really felt before and so I found myself in flight when are getting closer to my kids and suddenly I started caring more about getting home the ship eating is mentor to myself don't [ __ ] up just don't [ __ ] her just don't [ __ ] up but we did [ __ ] up Becky it was a 14-hour flight to Colombo weary intended to into nights but the pull of home was getting ever stronger we were discussing the pain in the ass associated with payment ending fees paying me approach fees getting the weather reports finding a place to park one of the flying these long distances was not actually the flying it was the Edmund you go in pay the landing fee get away the report and if it looks good it's just take off again in flight to the Seychelles James is going to pale any fees we've just landed in Sri Lanka like less than 20 minutes ago and we're waiting for a message from Tim to find out if the weather's okay for our flight to the Seychelles because he couldn't get hold of Tim James check the local for costs which looks sort of okay but as he got back to the plane it started to rain we jumped into the plane close the canopy now he's sitting in the rain raining outside and we looked at each other and said let's just go so we took off thinking okay we're in this rain and the cloud for maybe ten minutes and then we'll be out of it but didn't happen like that the rain just got worse and worse and effectively we were in the tropical storm with 18 hours flying ahead of us [Music] so on how's it I determine and if you wear that the trek is moving they can't be moving I searched that just landed from kuala lumpar they've been in the air for 14 hours are you sure well you know the sling has been stolen or the boys are on the move again that's not good news I think there's terrible storms south of Colombo let me get back and I'll have a look and I'll call you straight back rain rain on a few occasions we shown a torch onto the wing and there were streams of water coming off the wings I remember saying to James one point I don't know how long the engine can keep going ingesting his water we never flown in the airplane improperly sustained rahim but I don't think we even discussed Jamie back James and I hardly spurn a - silently I think we just agreed we Iscariot went at him for the Seychelles and we are gonna go terrifying terrifying I was a temp John I see that James tried to call me I don't know why I didn't hear it it's awful they're flying into the eye of something horrible eventually winter started pouring on to my feet electronic anything on weight and harassment we would be completely out of a job looking [Music] everyone who puts themselves in extreme situations knows that adrenaline moment when your very life is in the balance because that's the time you feel most alive but this wasn't like that this was a serious miscalculation the news by every thought was that the next moment could well be are lost and we feel like [Music] [Music] the rain started to slow down and about now after that we started to see stars and we realized we were like did you know he turned to me and he said to me so how did you feel during the rainstorm I said bad about that because I was really petrified I think it does same even be okay I'd rather be terrified that stupid this is something about the sunrise I mean it's gonna probably like emotional significance for humans I think when we lived in caves you know it means but I think especially after a night of terror yeah if the door nice happy nice different thing but at night of terror every baby you'd people have been games on every night was a night of terror pretty sure James are we good I feel so relieved and happy and great yeah I mean we this is so beautiful we'd come food what few pilots will ever have to experience we thought that if we can get through that with gear time no makers these little plays are designed to fly in conditioned circuit but you know you can't do a trip like this without pushing the limits and we knew that from the beginning because if you had to do everything exactly by the book you'd never get around the world there's no ways so we have to push and push we didn't to see that little yellow dot coming you know in the distance this goddess got bigger and bigger with whole swarm of various aircraft around it I'll never forget the day they kept back so here we were flying into the same airfield we live forty days and forty five thousand kilometres earlier but from exactly the opposite direction apart from a naked brother and a good friend the first person to welcome us was John it was great to be able to tell him and all those that made our dream happen that look our creation together took it around in 40 days and brought it back alive forty days is not enough time to have changed your life but you aren't such a high that somehow you you you different and you do take a while to get back into the routine after the great events they can often be a great sense of deflation of loss you know that it's over and I did not feel that at all after this journey I felt a deep sense of faith in the future and that actually bears I think some reflection really you know why on this occasion didn't I feel I have to go and do more do it again or do something else one of the reasons was because I had children in a family back home that provided me real sense of meaning and then the other reason was we had another mission immediately effect facing us that has turned out to be I think in many ways a greater mission and that is to create of the business out of these aircraft and turn it into a success not only for ourselves but for the community in which we lived and the country in which we live a country which is a fragile young adolescent country but one would if you are a citizen of it you want to contribute [Music] you

Channel: Wild Landings

Views: 117,010

Keywords: Wild Landings, Sling, Mike Blyth, James Pitman, Oshkosh, Air Show, Plane, Aircraft, Crashes, Moments, Africa, Botswana, Brazil, Belem, USA, Sri Lanka, wings, wing, flight, deck, sling 4, sling TSI, runway, cockpit, joystick, documentary, full movie, hd, full movie hd, pilot

Id: 1Fu8PJ4QSYE

Length: 51min 58sec (3118 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 24 2020