A teenage British pilot is expected to land at Donegal Airport tomorrow en route to breaking the world record for the youngest person to fly solo round the world in a single-engine aircraft.
Travis Ludlow (18), from Buckinghamshire, England, departed Teuge in The Netherlands on May 29th, heading east across Europe via Poland, before flying through Russia, Alaska and Canada.
A big thumbs up from Travis.
As of today, he is currently in Goose Bay, Canada, having previously been held up by storms in New York.
“Good job I was well rested after New York. Yesterday was a marathon leg. Nearly 1,200 miles in 11 hours of flying, with stops in Montreal and Saguenay,” he posted on his Facebook page this morning.
“I had planned to overnight in Saguenay but it being Canada Day weekend, there were no hotel rooms anywhere, seriously not one! So I figured, what’s an extra 660 miles, to Goose Bay, before bed.”
Travis on his approach to New York.
His remaining hops will take him on to Greenland, Iceland, Ireland (a stop in Donegal), Portugal, Morocco, Gibraltar, Spain, UK, France and Belgium — landing back in the Netherlands on July 7th.
Graphic shows the flight path of Travis Ludlow on his journey around the world.
The teenage pilot is making the trip in a Cessna 172R, regarded as the safest single engine aircraft ever built, upgraded with the latest avionics and aerodynamic fairings. Another useful aspect is that the plane has sold 44,000 units, meaning there are very few aviation maintenance facilities in the world that do not have experience of the 172 aircraft, should Travis’ plane require repairs.
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