22-Year-Old Aviators Circle Earth in Eisenhower-Era Plane
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- There were adventures aplenty: Waiting for a sleeping radio operator to clear them to land on Christmas Island. An emergency one-engine landing in Egypt. Flying a mere 10 feet above the waves off Samoa.
"We saw the full spectrum -- we're still trying to take it in," said Dan Dominguez, one of two 22-year-old pilots who returned
Friday after circling the globe in their Eisenhower-era plane "Dreamcatcher."
Dominguez and Chris Wall set off Sept. 13 aboard the 1957 Aero Commander 560E. Along the way, they documented their 30-country odyssey with diary entries and photographs displayed on the Internet.
The pair from El Paso, Texas, who both picked up pilot licenses at age 17, would like to earn a mention in the Guinness Book of Records for being the youngest flight crew to circle the globe.
However, records of the more than 160 noncommercial flights around the world since 1924 usually do not mention crew members' ages. And Dominguez and Wall play down the "youngest" aspect of their World Flight 2000.
"Most round-the-world flights have been taken either by daring fliers, people in military service or wealthy folks, and you don't get into that realm without having some age under your belt," says Joe Conger of Airchive, a history-of-flight repository in Springfield, Ill.
The youngest pilot to fly around the world was Tony Aliengena of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., who did it at the age of 11 in 1989, accompanied by his father. Flight record attempts by children were banned after 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff was killed in 1996 while trying to become the youngest person to fly across the United States.
Dominguez, who graduated in May from the University of Rochester, said their biggest thrill has been encouraging others to dream big. "You're only young for so long," he said.
Through their Web site -- <A HREF="http://worldflight2000.org" TARGET="_blank">http://worldflight2000.org</A> -- children were able to track Wall and Dominguez on excursions to volcanoes, reefs, temples and marketplaces from Oman to Indonesia to Hawaii.
The pair plan to discuss their adventures in school visits nationwide over the next few months.
They bought the twin-engine plane with a $15,000 loan in 1998. It's the same model of aircraft once used to ferry President Dwight Eisenhower to his Pennsylvania farm.
Wall, an engineering senior at Rice University in Houston, can still clearly picture "the green, lush Nile River valley in contrast to the desert" as they flew across Egypt.
Arriving over Christmas Island around dawn on Dec. 2 also was memorable. They had to circle the mid-Pacific atoll until someone came on the radio.
"They get one airplane a week," Dominguez said. "There's no television, no radio, no advertising on the island. It's just people living simply. We've never seen happier people."
In contrast, the Middle East was "the biggest culture shock," he said. "Everywhere you turn in Cairo, you can't not see a soldier in white with a machine gun."
One of their engines had to be shut down as they crossed over the Red Sea, and they headed back to a military base at Hurghada, Egypt.
"Both of us were working hard to keep the plane in the air, and we had to dump fuel," Dominguez said. "You're prepared for it as a pilot but when it happens and you're over foreign air space, it keeps you humble.
"As soon as we landed, we were swarmed by guys with machine guns yelling at us."