From Goway Travel
Two veteran pilots will land their single-engine biplane at Muskoka Airport midway through their 100-day journey around the world, 100 years after the first successful round-the-world flight. They plan to land on Friday, August 30, in the late afternoon (the exact landing time will be confirmed Friday morning).
Their journey began on June 1, when they left Papua New Guinea and traveled through the Pacific, Russia, the UK, and the North Atlantic.
The local landing opportunity was presented by longtime friend Bruce Hodge, who is a Muskoka cottage owner and fellow octogenarian. Bruce founded Toronto-based GowaynTravel in 1970 and works closely with Bob Bates operating tours in Papua New Guinea.
This year is the centenary of the first flight around the world. Four Douglas Air Cruisers, “Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans,” operated by the US Army Air Service, departed Seattle on April 6, 1924. The four aircraft were configured for the long over-water portion of the flight by exchanging wheels for pontoon floats. They flew a westward route that took them down the Aleutian Islands chain to Russian Kamchatka and onto Japan.
Shortly after departing Prince Rupert Island on 15 April, the lead aircraft “Seattle,” flown by Martin and Harvey, blew an 8cm hole in its crankcase and was forced to land on Portage Bay.
The crew resumed their journey on 25 April and attempted to catch up with the other three aircraft that were waiting in Dutch Harbor. However, the “Seattle” crashed in dense fog into a mountainside near Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula and was destroyed in the crash. The crew survived six harrowing days in the elements before finding shelter in an unoccupied cabin on Moller Bay. A second aircraft was ditched in the North Atlantic, and the U.S. Navy picked up the crew. The two remaining flight crews returned to a huge welcoming crowd in Seattle on September 28, 1924, after completing the epic 175-day, 26,345 mile, journey and becoming the First to Fly around the World. The World Flight’s aircraft had their engines changed five times and new wings fitted twice.
So what is the significance of this..? Well, on 1st June Bob Bates and Barry Payne departed Mount Hagen in Papua New Guinea, in Barrys Piper Comanche ZK-BAZ on a Centenary Commemoration westwards flight round the world. Step one is for us to be in Kagoshima where the original flyers were 100 years previous. We will then traverse Russia and onto the UK landing at Breighton Airfield which is close to Brough.
The aircraft will remain in the UK for a few weeks and then we plan to leave the UK in August, retracing the original flyers air path over the North Atlantic, across the USA back to Seattle. From there we will pickup the 1924 route through Alaska, along the Aleutian Islands chain to Kamchatka and complete a full circle back at Kagoshima. We aim to arrive back in Mount Hagen on 28th September, the same day the two Douglas Air Cruisers landed back at Seattle in 1924 completing the First Flight Round the World.
As it presently stands, our flight could end up being the only single engine Round The World flight this year, and the only flight closely re-enacting the 1924 flight route. And there are potentially other benchmarks involved. A combined age of the two crew Bob & Barry is 161 years, and a total of 105 years of pilot experience. This will also be the first time such an around the world flight will start and finish in Papua New Guinea.
Amelia Earhart too included Papua New Guinea in her fateful attempt to be the first woman to fly around the world. It was on 2nd July in 1937 from Lae in Papua New Guinea, in her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, with Fred Noonan as navigator, from where she made her final take-off, and, even to-day searches are still being conducted in an effort to find the true story as to what happened to her.
During our flight we should be visible on Flight Radar 24 if we are in the air. We will also have a Garmin tracker link with us that will show you where we are and will also enable satellite email and messaging.
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Luckily this afternoon the wind is to be from the south so they will be able to land OK.
All pilots know the wind is usually from the west here, aligned with the grass runway so no problem.
Now the airport is often unusable.
Search “Muskoka Airport decision mind-boggling, says reader.”
For a link to their current location search “Octogenarian aviator duo flying around the world slated to land their single-engine biplane at Muskoka Airport in Gravenhurst this afternoon”
My comments on Doppler are usually of the negative kind, but today is definitely different. It’s wonderful to have a good news story to comment on. I wish I could be up there with them. God be with you, be safe.