The path to get there? By creating a rigid airship—that’s one in which a “double” envelope holds a cushion of air all around to maintain consistent pressure, and it’s encased by panels as opposed to being a flexible bag of gas. Supporting the primary envelope there is a rigid aluminum structure and inside of that are 15 helium envelopes. These independent envelopes are managed via software, taking into account changes driven by variables such as the weather.

Solar Airship One will be powered by green alternatives to fossil fuels. The airship proposed would normally have a range of 1,000 kilometers (540 nm), but by layering the top half of the envelope with solar film from which to draw energy by day—and packing hydrogen fuel cells to deliver juice to the airship’s motors at night—the pilots plan a nonstop, unrefueled circumnavigate about the equator.

The team behind Euro Airship knows it’s an audacious goal, but the whole point of exploration is to dare such leaps in capability and application of technology.

Timely Eco Targets

EuroAirship’s project to build the Solar Airship One ticks off several timely and compelling targets. “The goal is to educate, to catalyze the young generation, for us it is very important because of the climate change, because of the natural disasters coming,” said Euro Airship crew and French aerobatic pilot Dorine Bourneton in an interview with FLYING in June at the Paris Air Show, along with Marie-Christine Bilbow, CEO of Euro Airship, and Jean-Claude Thonier, director of communications for Euro Airship. “That we need to have a new mobility—a green mobility.” Mobility is a touchpoint for Bourneton, who became the first paraplegic aerobatic pilot following an aircraft accident in which she was seriously injured.

Euro Airship has also engaged the logistics team that managed the round-the-world balloon flight of Bertrand Piccard. Former space shuttle astronaut and French Air Force pilot Michel Tognini will serve along with Piccard and Bourneton, as the trio of pilots required to be crew for the equatorial circumnavigation. The planned flight will cover 40,000 kilometers (21,598 nm) and take 20 to 30 days—and fly at an average altitude of 6,000 meters (19,685 feet).

• READ MORE: Google Co-Founder Plans Longest U.S. Airship Since the 1930s

Through the end of the year, the team will focus on completion of the preproduction planning and obtaining of sponsorships that it has been at work on for three years. In 2024, Euro Airship begins construction of Solar Airship One, and in 2025, the final assembly. Then, in 2026, the team hopes to have its permit to fly, departing on the round-the-world tour once granted its initial experimental certification.

Following the tour, Euro Airship intends to go after full type certification based on the technology proven on the mission. “The good thing is that we’re not doing this world tour flight just for an exhibition or for an adventure…there is [an] additional process after that for our technology,” said Bourneton, which she said is destined to support a carbon-neutral future. “We’ve been working for the last 20 years in R&D, and we self-financed [it]. Since July 2020, we signed a partnership with Capgemini, and they are helping to develop the industrialization phase.” That includes engineering, manufacturing, and the digital twin that will be used in production. Euro Airship is also working with Safran, mainly on the electric motors for the airship.

And the market it intends to pursue? First, the ecotourism space, followed by surveillance—primarily for militaries. “We can be at 6,000 meters, and we can use it without a crew, and stay up for [a long time],” said Bourneton. Because the energy is renewed each 24 hours the airship can remain aloft perpetually.

The third market Euro Airship will go after is logistics because the airship is projected to be capable of carrying very heavy payloads. While this has some military application, the company also sees  it providing support in the event of natural disasters. The airship can also help access places where transportation infrastructure—like roads—is scant.

Regardless of the mission in which the airship is used, the adventure that will kick it all off is certain to be worth watching.

The post Around the World on Solar Lift appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

At age 17 years and 64 days, Rutherford landed in Sofia, Bulgaria, Wednesday after departing from that city six months ago to begin his record-setting journey. 

It took Rutherford, who’s been nicknamed “Mack Solo” on social media, 142 days to pilot a single-engine Shark Aero ultralight—sponsored by ICDSoft—across four continents at a total distance of 29,225 nm. 

The Shark Aero was designed under the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) ultralight parameters that allow for an unrestricted top speed and complex-aircraft elements, such as retractable gear and a controllable-pitch prop. As such, the Shark Aero is operated under the experimental exhibition class in the U.S., as it doesn’t adhere to the FAA’s stricter LSA designation.

As an EASA ultralight pilot, Rutherford limited his flights to daytime only in the aircraft which had a maximum speed of 300 km/h (162 knots). Poor weather conditions sometimes forced him to cut his flight plans short and land in unexpected places.

“It’s been absolutely incredible,” he told CNN, although he said he ran into “some difficult patches.”

“The Sahara desert was incredible. Kenya was incredible, I was able to fly over national parks and see all the animals,” Rutherford said. “That’s what makes this journey a nice thing to go through and an amazing experience.”

The previous male record holder according to Guinness—U.K. pilot Travis Ludlow—circumnavigated last year at 18 years, 150 days old.  

Born in June 2005, Rutherford was actually only 16 when he first started his trek on March 23. 

Guinness has now declared him:

• the youngest person to circumnavigate the world by aircraft solo (male)
• the youngest person to circumnavigate the world by microlight solo (male) 

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A post shared by MackSolo (@macksolo2022)

Posting frequently on Instagram, his account became a personal logbook of sorts, providing explanations of pilot-related details, such as density altitude in Dubai. 

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A post shared by MackSolo (@macksolo2022)

Rutherford’s older sister, Zara Rutherford, also made the history books this year, when she circumnavigated the globe in an ultralight aircraft—taking one additional day than her brother to finish the journey. “She really was an inspiration for me,” the younger Rutherford told CNN.

Challenging Headwinds

Starting out in Sofia, Rutherford’s flight path took him towards the Mediterranean and then across the African Sahara, the Middle East, and Asia. 

One of the most challenging parts of his trek, according to Guinness, took place in the North Pacific, after taking off from the Aleutian island of Casco Cove. During the 10-hour, open-water leg of the trip, headwinds and rain forced him to land on a desolate island called Attu, which was described in a post on his Instagram account. 

“Mackinson Crusoe was now on an uninhabited island, surrounded only by boarded-up buildings, battle relics, and memorials telling of the immense amount of lost souls to the place…Although the scenery was breathtaking,” the post said. 

From there, Rutherford pushed on, flying through the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, followed by his final leg in Europe. 

‘Work Towards Your Dreams’

Rutherford was drawn to flying naturally, thanks to his parents, who are British and Belgian. His father works as a ferry pilot, while his mother holds a private pilot certificate, according to Guinness.

“I have known for certain I wanted to fly since I was eleven,” Rutherford told Guinness. “But no matter what background you have, I believe it is never too early to work towards your dreams and you shouldn’t limit yourself by others’ expectations. 

“I’m definitely going to carry on flying,” he told CNN. “I’m not entirely sure in what place in aviation—just that I’m going to keep flying. I’m thinking something like the air force, but I’m not 100 percent sure on anything.” For now, Rutherford said he’s “just going to focus on school and try and catch up as much as I can.”

The post Teen Pilot Becomes Youngest To Fly Solo Around the World appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

From a distance, Charlie looks like every other Skywagon. Look inside the cabin, and you’ll see that it was stuffed with giant aluminum fuel tanks, with nothing but a tiny space for the left seat being all that remained of the stock interior. Jerrie had upgraded the panel to include the latest long-range radio equipment that was available in 1964; however, beyond the modifications to make the flight, Charlie was just a tough and dependable airplane with enough useful load to tanker the fuel required to fly extremely long legs over angry oceans.

I learned about Charlie in 2000 after reading Jerrie’s book, Three-Eight Charlie. There was incredible aviation detail jumping off every page, and each word was a delight. This courageous woman flew herself solo around a world, and the rest is—or at least should have been—history.

Except it wasn’t.

Charlie Gets Snubbed

After asking how many of the members of my local aviation club knew who the first woman to fly solo around the world was, exactly zero knew about Jerrie Mock or her solo circumnavigation. I was disappointed at that moment because her name should be spoken in the same breath as Charles Lindbergh and other aviation legends we so easily remember.

I soon found myself in Washington, D.C., so naturally, I planned a visit to the National Air and Space Museum. Upon arrival, I fully expected to see Charlie hanging next to Lindy’s Spirit of St. Louis. After all, Lindy flew across one ocean single-engine, but Jerrie flew across several oceans, also in an airplane with nowhere to go but down if its one engine bought the farm.

I searched the entire museum and did not see Charlie. I was told by the info desk that it was in storage out at the museum’s Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland. After a quick metro ride, my tour group at the storage facility was soon strolling through numerous large buildings, and as the tour was about to end, I spotted a red-and-white Skywagon with its wings removed sitting in a rather dimly lit warehouse.

The tour guide confirmed it was Jerrie’s airplane.

With knowledge of what this woman did in this airplane, I stood in confused awe. I felt Charlie’s presence in an odd, surreal way, as if its soul was reaching out to me. Standing there looking at the dismantled Skywagon, I felt an energy between it and myself that to this day remains strong. I quietly wondered why aviation history had been so cruel to Jerrie, her airplane and her accomplishment.

In defense of the NASM, the tour guide told me that Charlie had at one time been on display, and would be hung “someday” in the new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center that was under construction at the time. But in that moment, it remained a noteworthy airplane that seemed sadly neglected. A powerful sense of urgency sweep over me, and I knew I had to do something to make this right.

Jerrie and Charlie faced numerous adventures on their journey. Through heavy icing over the Atlantic to being welcomed by a squad of soldiers aiming rifles at them in Egypt, both the pilot and the airplane persevered. I decided that a full-length feature film about the flight would correct this malfunction of aviation history.

The Meeting

It was not long after that I found myself sitting across from Jerrie in her Florida home, pouring over musty boxes of paperwork that included photos, telegrams, receipts—really an endless flood of her personal documentation from the flight.

I had gone to meet Jerrie for one purpose: to negotiate the movie rights to adapt her book Three-Eight Charlie into a screenplay. After some intense discussions, I eventually got her to sign an exclusive deal so I could acquire the rights and try to sell her story to the movie studios. But after a few years and several screenplay rewrites, the movie project never materialized and the project died. Had a studio picked it up, I believe it would have been the perfect film to inspire a whole generation of young women to pursue flying as a hobby or career.

In 2005, Dorothy Cochrane, NASM’s general aviation curator, granted me full access to Charlie for a private photoshoot before it was hung from the rafters at Udvar-Hazy. The photos reveal that Spirit of Columbus is exactly as Jerrie left it when she returned from her world flight, with typewritten notes for changing frequencies and moving fuel around the complex ferry-tank system still taped inside the cabin.

Today, Charlie has been moved downtown into the NASM as an important focal point of its new Thomas W. Haas “We All Fly” general aviation gallery, scheduled to open in 2022. While Jerrie has gone west, Charlie will now live on to tell the public about that 1964 flight, and after 58 years, it will finally get the recognition that is so richly deserved.

I encourage you to read the book, long out of print, but with reprints available at 38charlie.com. And if you get to the NASM and find a stock red-and-white Cessna 180 on display, that’s Charlie. Do yourself a favor and hang out with it for a while—because, trust me, it’s got quite an adventurous story to tell.

Editor’s Note: This article appeared in the November 2021 issue of FLYING.

The post One Iconic Cessna 180 Has Quite a Story to Tell appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

In a short video posted on social media Monday, Rutherford’s frosty breath illustrated the biting 24-below-zero temperature that greeted her in the city of Anadyr after her safe passage across the Bering Strait.

The composite-built Shark Aero microlight that Rutherford is flying is a high-performance, two-seat tandem ultralight aircraft with retractable gear and a two-bladed, variable-pitch propeller. It is powered by a Rotax 912 ULS 100 hp engine, which allows it to achieve cruise speeds of up to 140 knots, one of the fastest in its category.

Rutherford has now crossed the international date line. According to her website, she’ll require 30 more stops to complete her trip.

Early Tuesday, Rutherford made it to Magadan, Russia, after a six-hour, 25-minute flight over the Siberian Arctic tundra from Anadyr. From Russia, Zara will fly to Korea, Indonesia, India, the Middle East, Europe, and back to Belgium, where she plans to arrive in early December.

Zara is 77 days into a trip that was originally planned to last 45. Compounding weather delays caused Rutherford’s initial Russian visa to expire, grounding her in Nome.

The current record holder, Shaesta Waiz, completed her own trip in 2017 at age 30, taking 145 days to do so, owing in part to her planned outreach events via her non-profit, Dreams Soar, but also as a result of various weather and mechanical delays.

Earlier this year, 18-year-old Travis Ludlow from the United Kingdom earned the record of youngest man and person to fly solo around the world, which he was able to do in 44 days. Should Rutherford complete her trip, she would reduce the male-female gap from 11 years to 11 months.

Additionally, she would be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a microlight, and the first person from Belgium to do so in a single-engine aircraft.

Rutherford had more than 130 solo hours logged prior to departing on the flight.

• READ MORE: Pilot Attempting Around-the-World Flight Crosses Atlantic
• LIVE: Follow FlyZolo’s Journey

The post Pilot Attempting Around-the-World Flight Hits Halfway Point appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Zara Rutherford wants to be the youngest woman to fly around the world solo, as FlyZolo. She has completed the Atlantic crossing, the first major hurdle along the way.

The 19-year-old Belgian pilot is flying a Shark Ultralight single-engine airplane approved in the rough European equivalent of the light sport category, with a maximum takeoff weight of 600 kg, retractable gear and a variable-pitch propeller. The Shark has been used to set speed records in the category, in France.

Shaesta Waiz was 30 years old when she set the current around-the-world record for youngest woman pilot in 2017.

Rutherford comes from a family of pilots, and she had more than 130 solo hours logged prior to departing on the flight.

She departed from Kulusuk, Greenland (BGKK), Rutherford and aimed for Narsarsuaq (BGBW), then onto Canada, arriving in Goose Bay, Labrador (CYYR), on Monday after 8.5 hours of flying time. After a rest day Tuesday, she will continue on to Montreal, Quebec (CYHU).

Her planned route takes her through several stops in the U.S., including:

• New York (KJFK)
• First Flight Airport in North Carolina (KFFA)
• Jacksonville, Florida (KJAX)
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (KFLL)

From there, she heads south through the Caribbean and Mexico before looping back into Arizona and California. Rutherford will cross over to Asia via the Bering Strait, from Alaska to Russia.

Follow her journey on the FlyZolo site or on Facebook

The post Pilot Attempting Around-the-World Flight Crosses Atlantic appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Lancair IV pilot Bill Harrelson launched on his attempt to beat Max Conrad’s epic westbound round-the-world record with a flight that restarted in Ontario, California, after mechanical difficulties forced his diversion from his first planned segments. Harrelson has landed safely back in Ontario, where the calculations will now take place to determine if he has succeeded, according to the official observers.

Harrelson initially departed from St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport in Florida on Friday, December 6, 2019, at 22:02Z (5:02 pm Eastern Standard Time) in his attempt to break the record set by Conrad in 1961. Officially, the record he pursues, endorsed by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) is the Speed Around the World, Westbound Class C-1d. Harrelson’s initial destination: Honolulu, Hawai’i. However, on the first leg, he noted one of the cylinders misfired after roughly 5 hours of flight time, and he stopped in Austin, Texas, to diagnose the problem—finding a loose lead wire to that cylinder. The engine ran faithfully for a few more hours, then the problem recurred, and he diverted again to San Luis Obispo. Believing there to be a further connection problem between the ignition and the cylinder, he resolved the issue and restarted the record attempt—after repositioning to Ontario, California—on December 8.

But difficulty with the HF (high frequency) radio on the departure from Ontario caused him to turn back for a fix—and restart the clock again, as he’d be launching from the same airport. After 13 hours and 7 minutes of flying, Harrelson landed at Honolulu (PHNL) for a rest and some flight planning for his route the next day to Jakarta, Indonesia. That leg, departing at 15:00Z and planned for 31 hours, took 32:10 in reality, keeping him on track for the record.

It’s up to 9 days of pretty intense flying, members of his team said in an interview with Flying. His rest stops count against the clock, so he must balance fatigue and safety with pursuing the goal relentlessly for the prescribed days of flying. Following the leg to Jakarta, he posted another long leg, on to Cape Town, South Africa, in 28:41—a little faster than the planned 29:30 enroute. His next leg, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, elapsed in 31:42 minutes. Harrelson fought strong headwinds on the final leg into Ontario on December 15, but stayed low and posted a relatively swift 16:10. Total time to spare (unofficially): 19 hours and 28 minutes faster than the existing record.

Harrelson chose the Lancair IV for its speed and efficiency, according to his Instagram account, and he flies behind a Continental IO-500 engine and a new Electroair electronic ignition system. The system replaces the stock magnetos, and the swap lowered the fuel burn by 1 to 1.1. gallon-per-hour—a significant amount when working with the kinds of distances he expected to cover on the route. The tanks hold 361 gallons, of which nearly every drop is usable, allowing for the incredibly long segments for a solo pilot. He has already flown the airplane, N6ZQ, across the Pacific Ocean 7 times, and over the North and South poles.

The post Lancair IV Pilot Completes Westbound Circumnavigation appeared first on FLYING Magazine.