Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51934 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 222 pages

Synopsis
In 1998 Brian Milton and fellow pilot Keith Reynolds, who abandoned the flight, attempted to fly a single-engine micro light around the world in eighty days. Their flight aboard GT Global Flyer retraces as far as possible the route taken by Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's classic story. They flew what is virtually no more than a hang glider with a motorbike slung underneath, the smallest and lightest aircraft ever to attempt such a hazardous journey. Leaving London and passing over Europe, Milton and Reynolds flew to the Middle East and onwards through China, Japan and into Russia. Crossing the Pacific, they reached Alaska and flew through Canada and the USA, before going to Greenland and Iceland, then Scotland and finally back to London. Global Flyer is Brian Milton's account of this incredible journey and of the hazards and dangers which he and Reynolds had to overcome - ranging from engine failure and atrocious weather conditions to being shot at by Syrian fighters. This is a story of flying in the face of adversity, of a constant battle against time and the elements and of overcoming obstacles and challenges that even Phileas Fogg did not have to contend with.

Customer Reviews

A fascinating story of a real life hero.
From the initial search for sponsors to the landing back at Brooklands this book describes the dedication and bravery required to be different from the crowd. Well written and gripping from start to finish.

Honest author summery
GLOBAL FLYER, by Brian Milton, hardback published in 1998, price £16.99. Published in paperback, 2004 by New European Publications, Price £10.00

In 1998, two men set off to fly a microlight around the world; 120 days later, one man came back alone in it. Global Flyer, by Brian Milton, is a thrilling account of the first flight around the world by microlight aircraft, no more than a large kite with a motorbike slung underneath. He and a friend of 20 years, Keith Reynolds, set out to race their little aircraft around the world in 80 days, chasing the ghost of Phileas Fogg. They were buzzed ten times by a Mig-21 jet fighter trying to get out of Syria, but the Mig didn't shoot so they were able to reach Jordan. In the Saudi Desert, the engine "brewed-up" seven times, discharging all their cooling fluid. They twice landed in the dark, and then changed their engine, which still brewed-up. It was only by rigging a Heath Robinson cooling system, tie-wrapping the radiator to an undercarriage leg and sending an Arab fireman out with $50 to find 8 feet of tubing and six clips, that they were able to get away. Their first test-flight was across 300 miles of Persian Gulf. They crossed India plagued by a heat wave, and 800 miles of jungle-covered mountains in Burma, Laos and Vietnam in monsoon conditions. China held them up, then Japan, and then - for 26 days - the Russian authorities. Keith had to fly by airliner to Alaska while a Russian navigator took his place, but Keith lost heart (and the plot) in Anchorage and went home. This left Brian to cross 3,000 miles of Siberia, sometimes covered in ice, with a Russian stranger in the back. From Nome, Alaska, Brian flew on alone, down to San Francisco to pick up Fogg's route again, chased by tornadoes across to New York, and then the first solo west-east crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by microlight, where for three hours he was in a place "beyond fear". The flight won the Royal Aero Club's Britannia Trophy; there is no higher award in the gift of the Club. It also won the prestigious and rarely given Segrave Trophy, once won by Amy Johnson. NatGeo-TV broadcast four half-hour programmes about the flight, called A Microlight Odyssey.

...."In all his ventures Brian had a strong sense of history and the romance of aviation. As a journalist he approached his circumnavigation as a story that he wanted to tell well, something that Keith could never understand or empathise with. It was an amazing achievement, of dogged bloody-minded tenacity and the taking of some huge risks by a man who was fighting his fear and, at times, just about everyone around him. A great adventure"....

Sir Chris Bonington, who included Brian's microlight flight in his best selling book, Quest for Adventure, about the greatest individual adventures since World War Two.

..."Your Global Flyer around the world in 80 flying days was without doubt the most extraordinary flight of this century. Only people who have flown in those areas in the relative comfort of fully certified aircraft, as I have, would fully understand your achievement. I congratulate you. You are one of the major aviators of the century and I put you with Lindbergh and Kingsford-Smith. After reading the book I arranged to go for a 10-minute flight in a trike and that gave me even more admiration for your flight...."

Dick Smith, Australian billionaire and adventurer, first man to fly solo around the world in a helicopter, and publisher/founder of "Australian Geographic".

..."I read it at one sitting because, although I already knew the outcome and the major twists and turns along the way, the story is utterly engrossing and I felt I had to find out what happened next. The book succeeds as a 'ripping yarn' but does so on other levels too. There is the thread of a political thriller, with various approaches by Richard Branson to influence the adventure. This is a microlighting classic that should be on every microlighter's shelf. It may even rank among other travel classics"....

David Bremner, Editor, "Microlight Flying"

"This book is an account of one of the greatest flying adventures of all time. It is also the story of a man cast in the heroic mould yet strangely flawed, driven by a desire for the recognition he felt he was denied by his peers. It is, without a doubt, the best microlighting book yet written - go out and buy it now. The flying itself is a fantastic read, with almost non-stop drama and adrenalin. It is also very much a character study of Brian Milton, and he has shown himself to us honestly, warts and all. His Achilles heel is that he is scared of heights - a relic of a bad hang gliding accident in the seventies - and his accounts of his battle with this fear, and the unusual weapons he used, are candid and revealing. Hero, adventurer - but also a hard man to live and work with on a daily basis."

Nick Bowles, Internet Aviation site