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Brian Milton and the GT Global Flyer

On 21st July 1998 at 16:40 GMT a travel-stained microlight touched down at Brooklands airfield, England, after an incredible 24,000 mile world-girdling flight.

Brian Milton and co-pilot Keith Reynolds set off on the 24 March 1998 to circumnavigate the world in a two-seat weightshift microlight. Their intention was to copy the achievement of Jules Verne's hero Phileas Fogg by circling the Earth in 80 days.

Their chosen vehicle was a British Pegasus Quantum 912 weightshift microlight. They were sponsored by GT Global, and supporters and well-wishers were able to follow their daily progress through a series of daily reports on the GT Global Flyer website.

The flying went well, but the bureaucratic delays began to eat into their schedule. By the end of day 26, the Global Flyer was already in Hanoi, Vietnam, but here things began to go wrong. It took over a week to get permission to fly into China, then the Japanese proved strangely difficult. Finally, the Russians refused them permission to overfly Russia to the Bering Straights unless they had a chase plane or a Russian navigator, and to cap it all their sponsor was taken over and the new owners pulled the plug on the website. Luckily all monies had already been paid, and a new site was quickly set up.

By now all hope of reaching the 80-day target had gone. Keith Reynolds reluctantly went home to deal with everyday commitments, while Brian flew on through Russia with a Russian navigator in the back.

After reaching Alaska, things went a little more smoothly, and Brian's worst worry after this was when he was nearly home and was forced down by appalling weather in Scotland, where he spent the night as an unexpected guest of Grampian Microlight Flying Club. Finally Brian made his truimphant way back to Brooklands.

Brian Milton has set two records:

• First Flight Around The Globe in a Microlight
• Record for global flight in single-engine, open-cockpit Aircraft

(The second record had been held for an incredible 74 years by two Douglas World Cruisers, flown by the US Army).

To conclude, I would like to quote Paul Hutchison:

"That Brian spent all those long cold hours over Arctic waters is an incredible feat in itself. But he had much more than physical barriers to battle against:

• The pen-pushers who tried their level best to block his route.
• The sad people who decided that sponsorship was no longer a viable option - wouldn't you just love to be a fly-on-the-wall at the next board meeting?

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