At the age of 17, Belgian-British Mac Rutherford won the bet: today he became the youngest pilot to circumnavigate the world alone with an ultralight aircraft. Needed five months and one day to achieve this goal. This afternoon he landed at the small airport in the town of Radomir, Bulgaria, about an hour from Sofia.
Wearing his uniform pilot and a light blue helmet covering his long hair, the thin teenager did not hide his excitement but also his regret because this “fantastic” trip, which gave him “the feeling of absolute freedom”has come to an end.
“I want to show that young people can make a difference, chase your dreams!”, he said.
Mack covered 54,000 kilometers in 221 hours, passed through 30 countries and faced extreme temperatures, up to 48 degrees Celsius, among his other adventures. At the end of July it was forced by strong winds to land on Atu, an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, west of Alaska. Some point he found that the food he had with him was soaked by the fuel and satisfied his hunger by eating chocolates, according to his parents and sister, who were present at the reception.
“This kind of trip requires enormous self-control, on all levels, you have to be able to control your emotions, your anxiety,” explained his mother, Beatrice de Smet, who initially struggled to accept that her son would be leaving for around the world alone.
“He did it like an ace!” said Sam Rutherford, the young man’s father and a retired military pilot himself.
The war in Ukraine was another headache for the young man, which was forced to change the original plans, the preparation and the route it would follow. Instead of flying over Russia, it deviated from its course and passed south through Pakistan, India, South Korea and Japan. The most difficult part of his journey was across the Pacific Ocean, to the USA, as he admitted. It took ten hours.
THE Mack has had a passion for aircraft from a very young age. Upon his arrival at Bulgaria today, he had not only a cheering crowd waiting for him but also a Guinness certificate to prove it his record. To date, the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world is Britain’s Travis Ludlow, who accomplished this feat at the age of 18.
Because Mack flew in an ultralight aircraft, he also broke a second record, held for just a few months by his sister, Zara, who is the youngest female pilot to fly solo around the world at the age of 19. Zara didn’t seem bothered by the “loss” of her record, saying she was very proud of Mack and even presented him with his award herself.
Mack’s next goal is much more pedestrian: “to go back to school and make up lost ground.”
Source: News Beast
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