Microlight flight from Yorkshire to Sydney

Buffman

Sounds like some adventure.

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16059954

A microlight pilot has landed in Australia after flying all the way from Yorkshire - a 12,000-mile journey that took four months to complete.
Dave Sykes' achievement is all the more remarkable as he is paralysed from the waist down, having broken his back in a motorbike accident 18 years ago.
Mr Sykes dismantles his wheelchair before taking off, strapping it to the side of his aircraft.
During his marathon flight the amateur pilot flew over 18 countries, crossing oceans, deserts, cities and jungle.
He had to cope with dust storms over Saudi Arabia, was threatened with being shot down over Iran and only just survived a huge storm above Burma.
Mr Sykes will now fly back to Britain in a conventional passenger plane
He told Sky News: "There was a big flash and the aircraft shuddered with a lightening strike at the side of me and blew all the fuses out on the instruments.
"It got to the point where I wasn't scared any more, it was just about trying to survive it all."
Unsurprisingly when Sydney's iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge came into view, it was an emotional moment.
"I could see the bridge in front of me - I thought, this is what I've planned for two years for. This is the actual final flight of it all," he said.
Mr Sykes crossed oceans, deserts, cities and jungle
"I just couldn't stop smiling really, and then flying over the actual bridge, looking at all the people doing the bridge walk waving at me, that was something else that was."
Mr Sykes trip began after his friends bet him that he could not fly all the way to Sydney.
He now has another - yet to be announced - adventure in mind, something he planned during the many hours spent in the air on his way Down Under.
Mr Sykes will now fly back to Britain in a conventional passenger plane - his faithful microlight is being stripped down and sent back by sea.

pclancy

I love that story. I'm planning to tour New Zealand in a microlight someday but he had serious balls to that route!

Davidth88

Wasn't there a microlight pilot who died crossing the channel on the first leg of a similar flight .... have to google that now

Yep thought so

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6993677.ece

The microlight pilot who died in the English Channel just three hours into a six week charity flight to Australia made a series of distress calls before he crashed in low cloud and mist, it has emerged.

Run_to_da_hills

At least he kept his distance from Croke Park.

LLU

Davidth88 wrote: »

Wasn't there a microlight pilot who died crossing the channel on the first leg of a similar flight .... have to google that now

Yep thought so

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6993677.ece

The microlight pilot who died in the English Channel just three hours into a six week charity flight to Australia made a series of distress calls before he crashed in low cloud and mist, it has emerged.

text from the article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6993677.ece :

Doomed microlight pilot Martin Bromage's final distress calls

The microlight pilot who died in the English Channel just three hours into a six week charity flight to Australia made a series of distress calls before he crashed in low cloud and mist, it has emerged.
Martin Bromage was due to land at the French coastal airport of Le Touquet at around 3pm yesterday but was forced to divert by bad weather and appealed to the French air traffic controllers for an alternative place to land.
The father of two sons was offered the option of Abbeville, a few miles further inland, but after initially setting a new course he changed his mind and decided to head back to England.
"He made a series of radio calls," said the watch manager of Dover Coastguard.
"The information we have from the French is that he was calling them and was trying to ascertain an alternative landing spot. He was offered Abbeville, but he apparently then turned back and that is when the accident happened."
French pilots have expressed surprise that anyone should attempt to cross the Channel when most light aircraft in northwest France were grounded by the low cloud and mist, with fog forecast which subsequently hampered rescue attempts.
Lynceus, the satellite tracking company monitoring Mr Bromage's progress on what was supposed to be a 11,000 mile trip to Sydney, said that the beacon fitted to his microlight last sent a signal at 1246 GMT. At that moment he was flying at over 3,000 ft at a speed of 74mph, about two miles off the French coast.
His last contact with French air traffic control in Lille was at 1250 GMT, when he advised that due to the weather he couldn't get into Le Touquet and was diverting to Abbeville.
The tracking team raised the alarm with Dover Coastguards at 1611 GMT to say that they did not know where Mr Bromage was and Dover coastguard relayed their concerns to the French coastguards in Cherbourg, said Mark Clark, a spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
The French authorities sent up a helicopter to search for him, but at 1800 GMT it had to land again because of the worsening visibility. Two French customs cutters were sent to cruise along the coast where it was thought Mr Bromage might be found, but were hampered by not knowing his exact position.
Lieutenant Christelle Haar of the Channel Naval Prefecture said the body was found in the water by a Portuguese tug boat at about 2100 GMT, 20 miles off Le Touquet. There was no sign of the aircraft but an air search is under way using helicopters and a customs aircraft.
"The circumstances of the accident will be difficult to establish," she said.



"The weather conditions were difficult, with dense fog. Visibility was almost nil. The naval helicopter pilot had to halt his search yesterday because visibility was down below 500 metres. He even had to use an emergency procedure to land because conditions were below the statutory minimum visibility for a normal landing."
Experienced light aircraft and microlight pilots said that all the signs pointed to the pilot becoming disoriented by flying in zero visibility. It would have been hard to avoid crashing in these conditions, even with a perfectly functioning aircraft.
Mr Bromage's body was taken to Boulogne for formal identification, and Gloucestershire Police is said to be making arrangements for its repatriation.
The 49-year-old tree surgeon was separated from his wife. His sons are said to have been informed of the tragedy.
Before he set off, Mr Bromage said that he was aware of the dangers of sea crossings. His flight was to have taken him across stretches of sea up to 300 miles, testing his small craft to its limits.
"Normally private pilots of any general aviation aircraft in this country think long and hard about a 20-mile flight across the Channel, so a 300-mile crossing in any aircraft is a great undertaking," he told BBC Points West.
"To equip myself for the worst possible scenario I have a life raft, I have satellite positioning equipment, a distress beacon and a radio. My friends and family are very, very supportive, but they think I am criminally insane."
Mr Bromage set off at 10am from Staverton Airport in Gloucestershire on his lone flight to Sydney, which he hoped would raise £150,000 for the war charity Help For Heroes.
His planned route took him from the Kent coast, just east of Hastings, direct to le Touquet, a 40-mile water-crossing that should have taken under half an hour in acceptable weather.
"It seems likely, however, that he became disoriented in the fog and lost his bearings, something that is easy to do in a light aircraft even with modern satellite navigation," said Charles Bremner, The Times's Paris correspondent and an experienced private pilot.
"Mr Bromage would have been in contact with air traffic control throughout the crossing because all cross-Channel flights are carried out under radar control. Aircraft are handed over mid-Channel from London area to Lille area controllers - who all speak English."
In addition to the satellite tracker which was intended to allow Mr Bromage's supporters and sponsors to monitor his progress online, his P&M Aviation QuikR aircraft was fitted with five miniature cameras to record the flight.
The microlight should have been able to stay in the air for eight hours and travel 500 miles between refuelling, at speeds of up to 100mph.
On his website, set up to promote the "epic" adventure, Mr Bromage made no secret of the risks he faced. He expected to face "incredibly hostile terrain with daunting sea crossings and testing meteorological conditions".
He also wrote on the site that he had been around the British Isles four times by microlight.
He told the Gloucestershire Echo: "I have done a few adventurous trips in Europe in the microlight and I just thought to myself, why not push it that bit further?
"I have been flying microlights for around eight years. I started with paragliders, but had a bad accident which left me in hospital for five months.
"There is a real sense of freedom – you can feel the wind and smell the atmosphere which you can’t do in an enclosed cockpit."
Mr Bromage, who lived in Churcham, near Gloucester, began his career in industrial chemistry, before building businesses in radio communications and then tree surgery. He later became involved in property.
Last year he flew unsupported from Gloucester to the Algarve, Portugal.
His other interests were motorcycling, scuba diving, white-water kayaking, and mountaineering. He was one of the few people to have climbed The Old Man of Hoy in Orkney.
Last month Mr Bromage told The Sun newspaper, which backs Help for Heroes, that he would land at airports on the way and sleep in hotels. He thought that "the tricky bit" would be getting fuel abroad.
He told the newspaper: "I'm going to have fun."

apologies for hijacking this thread, was just reading the article about the tragic crash of Mr Bromage linked to by Davidth88 (pasted above) and was curious about flying in zero visibility in a microlight.

I was wondering to what extent can you fly a microlight in bad visibility - do you have to be able to see the ground? if not, can you tell your heading/pitch/etc via instruments? do microlights have one of those artificial horizon instruments?

pclancy

As far as I know microlights are VFR only as supposed to fly in clear weather or staying well away from clouds. In his case it seems he was flying in fog/IMC so I guess he didnt have enough instrumentation to fly himself out of that area of poor visability. In theory you just need an artificial horizon and a compass as well as the standard airspeed/altitude instruments to get out of poor visability. He also had GPS but it obviously either wasnt enough or he got horribly disorientated.

Edit: just found this youtube video, you can see his "cockpit" about 5 seconds in and there certainly doesnt appear to be enough instruments for IFR flight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7zjsZNx7Bg