Travis Ludlow - round the world
 

I'm full of admiration for this young aviator and wish him every success. At his age my longest trip was to Dieppe......

https://aroundtheworldsolo.co.uk/

The Flying Reporter has a nice piece on the trip..


Will be following his progress and fingers crossed.

Looks like he's in the air, he's left Wycombe Air Park and is heading east right now (according to Flightradar24, search for N5010).

Edited to add: approaching EHTE now

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c19955f0b2.png

Anybody on Facecloth, you can follow his exploits on there.

G

In case anyone knows this 'Flying Reporter' dude, and under the assumption he or she is keen for people to listen to them, you might want to pass on the message I get when clicking on the above link...:

"This video is private.
If the owner of this video has granted you access, please sign in"

:rolleyes:

Looks like he re-uploaded the video, see here:

Thanks, that works :ok:

Does his projected flight take him through Belarus airspace?

Not anymore. The original route as shown on his website has been changed a lot, mostly due to Covid 19, but just before the start the leg to Russia was also changed. He flew from Wycombe Air Park to Teuge, The Netherlands (where his Cessna was prepared) on 27th May. Teuge to Gdansk, Poland on 29th May and from Gdansk across Estland (avoiding Belarus) to Pskov in Russia and onwards to Moskow today.

Just watching his departure video.
Not the greatest of takeoffs.
Didn't keep the centerline on rotate.

Good luck to the young chap though.

Just reviewed his route. Pretty spectacular and I am very envious of him being able to do this financially.
A lot of landing, parking, handling and fuel fees but I am sure he has this considered.

It would have been better if on his website he would have his route shown on a map as to opposed just cities/countries.

Light planes aren't rotated. If you must be pecky, that is.
And if this young stud is very fortunate, why be envious? I for one wish him every success!

May I be excused, though, for poking some fun at his miss-spelling of his maintenance providers' name ;) As I said before: none like the Brits for abusing nouns proper... so he is joining an old tradition.

The tracking link on his website works now. Looks like he's approaching the Sea of Okhotsk. That's a lot of flying done already! I found out that the Cessna he's flying used to be on the Dutch register, I've got about 65 hours in that particular airframe, I guess Travis will easily beat that! :)

The list of places to visit on his site hasn't been updated unfortunately, his actual route is quite different from the original plan, mostly due to Covid-19.

Only Cessna seem to avoid the term, or anything equivalent.

G

Well. He's done it and hearty congratulations to the young lad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...herts-57641567


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....05f66d7406.jpg

Yes, very well done indeed. Quiet an achievement for such a young lad.

Who threw the money at the venture? He's obviously from a wealthy family judging by the "public School" Accent.
Was it Daddy, sponsorship or both?

In the interview on the BBC he said that Ireland was the most welcoming country. How did he end up there?

I too, have a public school accent - having attended the same in my youth.

I however, haven't got a pot to piss in.

Doesn't always add up that the one guarantees the abundance of the other.

Stow the prejudice.

A posh accent is something I'd love to have, maybe more people would listen to me, but there's no hope now :}

Anyway I see Travis has expressed a desire to fly an electric 'plane around the world. I should think that a reasonable possibility in his lifetime, so while I probably won't be around to see it, and in the possibility that he should read this one day, I wish him all the best in that endeavour :ok:

Auxtank Totally agree. Snap!

He traveled by aeroplane.;)

He wanted to tick another continent off his list so he routed Iceland - Benbecula - Donegal - Cork and then went south via Spain and Gibraltar to Marocco. He had to do a couple of extra miles in the USA to get up to the minimum distance needed to claim the round-the-world record, perhaps he came up short and needed these legs to make up for that.
Edit: I see he ended up flying over 24,900 miles so I guess he wanted to not only exceed the distance of the tropic of cancer but that of the equator as well.

Given the route he chose ,which was mostly overland ,this record does not merit the same degree of admiration as that of 18 year old Lachlan Smart who flew some incredibly long legs across the Pacific and Atlantic. There is also the fact that he only gets the record by being 13 days younger.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-27/Lachlan-smart-becomes-youngest-pilot-to-fly-solo-around-world/7791122