Flying Lessons Northern Ireland - Microlight Adventures

Adventures

With their low maintenance and sturdy construction, Microlights are ideally suited for Adventure.This section contains stories of pilots who have flown to the ends of the earth and back again.

Mike Blyth and Olivier Aubert are two microlight pilots based in South Africa. In 1995 they undertook an expedition from the Northern most city of Europe (North Cape in Norway) to the Southern most city of Africa (Cape Town). At the time and up until 1997, a world record for this type of flying. In 1999 Mike and Olivier started a journey from Argentina to Cape Town via Iceland. On route they crossed the Andes, the North Atlantic, went to Timbuktu and eventually got to Cape Town. We start off with Olivier telling the story of Crossing the Great Americas. Their full story is told in their amazing DVD, South to South. These two blokes are always on the go, check out their Trike Expeditions site.

Years earlier the first man to cross the Atlantic in a Weightshift was Eppo Numan. After crossing from Scotland to Iceland via the Faeroe Islands (in June 1989), Eppo was stopped continuing his flight by the Danish authorities. Once the necessary permissions were obtained Eppo had to return to Holland as he had missed his weather window.

We pick Eppo's story up after he has returned to Iceland the following Summer. After selling his restaurant to fund the remainder of the flight, he successfully Crossed the Atlantic in August 1990.

Last but certainly not least we have Richard Meredith-Hardy. In 1985 Richard flew from London to Cape Town in a flexwing. In doing so he became the first man to fly a flexwing across the Alps, carried out an eight-hour crossing of the Mediteranean and crossed a desert just for good measure. Between then and now he's been busy doing lots of other flying stuff.

In May 2004, Richard became the first person to fly a Microlight over Everest, towing his friend Angelo D'Arrigo behind him on a hang-glider. Richard kept a log for most of the duration of the summit attempt, it makes fascinating reading. In between then and now, Richard has flown over Aconcagua in South America, flown to Sydney and over Kilimanjaro all on a weightshift Microlight!

The video above shows Richard flying above Kilimanjaro and should give you some idea of what a high altitude flight in a Microlight is like. We've also included some microlight links, some adventure related and some just useful for pilots. If you've any articles, pictures or links you'd like to contribute then please contact us.

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