At just after 13.00 on Tuesday, two tired but happy helicopter pilots landed at Fairoaks airfield near Farnborough.
The fatigue was a result of having just spent 17 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes and 25 seconds flying around the world against prevailing winds, but they were smiling because their record flight was almost a week better than the previous mark.
Flying a Bell 430, pilots Ron Bower (who held the previous record) and Bell test pilot John Williams circumnavigated the globe east to west having left from Fairoaks on August 17.
Speaking at the show, the pilots explained how the trip had involved political difficulties in addition to weather-related problems.
"Despite the fact that everything had been planned down to the minutest detail," says Bower, "we still had difficulties in Russia - not through malice, but due to a lack of understanding about record attempts and general aviation in general."
Both pilots confirm that the helicopter performed admirably with no problems whatsoever. "The only flying difficulties were stronger-than-predicted head-winds and occasional bad visibility," says Bower. Their speed varied from hover to 150kt (280km/h); their altitude from more than 12,000ft (3,600m) down to 12ft!
The flight's longest leg was 770km (420nm) across water between Iceland and Greenland which took 3hr 40 minutes while a journey between Greenland and Frobisher Bay in Canada took a similar time. "We saw a lot of water, icebergs and whales," says Bower.
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Source: Flight Daily News
