Hello again, it's been a while!
You know I haven't posted a video on this channel since the 24th of June as I record
this that's exactly one month and one day ago I think that's possibly the longest
gap between publishing videos since well at least this year possibly at least in
the last couple of years so there are a couple of things that I wanted to update
you on quickly before I start posting the normal content back on this channel again I
want to talk to you about Oshkosh and I want to talk to you about my round the world trip
Some of you have been asking me about my Oshkosh schedule when I'm going to be at Oshkosh whether
there's going to be any meet and greets happening during the week so let me do what all the other
YouTubers are doing at the moment let me put up my schedule here on the screen so you can see
exactly when I'll be Oshkosh yeah that's right sadly I'm not actually going to be going this
year the thing about Oshkosh like everywhere in the world compared to Australia is sadly it's a
bloody long way away and I've been doing a fair bit of traveling already this year I just don't
have the capacity and the resources to get over to Oshkosh so thank you for asking if I'm going
to be there sadly Steph won't be there this I just refer to myself in the third person sadly I
won't be there at Oshkosh this year but do me one favour if you are going in the comments below post
me some video links on YouTube of other people who've got some good content at Oshkosh I really
want to absorb it this week I think it's one of the best air shows on the whole Aviation calendar
and I'm a bit bummed that I'm not there this year and I know a lot of my friends and a lot of other
people are going so yeah if you find any good videos about us this year stick in in the comments
down below so I can sit here and feel sad for myself that I'm not actually making it this year
[Music]
thank you so I set up this YouTube channel to share my Aviation adventures with you all here
on the internet and it was in 2018 when I made this video I was looking on Google Earth and I
found that there was this island called ATU which is an abandoned Island on Google Earth it looked
like the runway was still there and in reasonable condition and I worked out that if I flew the five
hours to R2 and if only I had fuel then it would be about 19 hours to Japan so I flew from adac
out to R2 and I left some of my fuel bags on the side of the runway and then I flew back to adac
I waited a week for the weather to get better and then on this really big day I filled up the plane
I went and landed at R2 topped up those extra five bags of fuel an hour or two later I took off and
I flew what turned out to be an 18-hour flight down to Japan it was that moment talking to my
friend Michael that really firmly implanted the idea of flying around the world in my head it was
something that I'd wanted to do for a long time before that but that conversation with Michael
really was a massive turning point for me I also decided at that time that I wanted to make this
YouTube channel kind of like a longer story and instead of individual videos I wanted to make it
about this long narrative Arc about me preparing myself to fly around the world and that's why I
made videos about buying this aircraft buying Echo Yankee Zulu I started making these short
Aviation miniseries which would replicate what I'd be doing with the round the world trip I
started practicing what it would be like to fly overseas remember when I went to East Timor and
even recently when I went up to Iceland and flew with Philippe across to Iceland Greenland all that
experience across the North Atlantic was really my way of practicing of getting myself ready but
also of hopefully closing this narrative Arc and saying yes now I'm ready now I'm going
to share this around the world experience with you here on this channel for flying around the
world there really is a strict weather window that I want to follow and that's I've got about
five months between May and September which the ideal times for me to fly so originally
I wanted to do it in 2020 but of course we had the global pandemic nothing was happening that
year 2021 I rescheduled everything I thought I could go then but the world really wasn't opened
up enough in order for me to be able to do it in 2021 2022 I thought Now's the Time I can go
the world's back open again but unfortunately the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine meant that
flying through Russian airspace was going to be incredibly problematic so that brings us to 2023
it's quite hard for me to talk about actually I'll be honest my money to me so as I said
it's July as I record this my weather window of May to September I think I pretty much missed
my slot for flying around the world in 2023 now I've been away the last three four weeks that's
why I haven't posted any videos I've been just enjoying some family time away with my wife and
daughter got to see my mum and dad who I haven't seen for a little while it's been really really
good I had a lot of down time and as you know when you go traveling you have a lot of time to
think and I've been thinking about what I'm going to do with this around the world trip and I think
it's really important that I come clean with you and I'm honest with you to set your expectations
about when if this thing will ever happen [Music]
I need a change of scenery
remember when I said no more announcements on the channel one more announcement on the channel I
have decided that I am not gonna fly around the world until at least 2026 and there's a really
important personal reason to me why I've set that time limit before I actually go off and
do this project and that reason is Junior pilot as many of you know her but my daughter who is
now going to be going into the last two years of her high school I don't want to miss that I
want to be around for that I want to be here for her as a dad as opposed to going away for four or
five months in her year 11 or year 12 which is such formulative and important years for it and
I also want to make sure that if I do no I want to make words are important I want to make sure
when I do this trip that I do it really well because I want to give the payback to you for
waiting so long to see me do this trip and if I do it in the next two years my mind's going to be
elsewhere because I'm going to be thinking about Junior pilot I'm going to be thinking about her so
no around the world until at least 2026. I'm sure some of you will be disappointed with that
and I'm sorry um some of you may disagree with my decision you might not do the same thing if you're
in my place and and I respect that but for me I've made this decision based on personal reasons but I
didn't want to just like let this thing not happen for another two and a half years and for some of
you who maybe have subscribed to this channel to watch this adventure I didn't want to let you down
hello
hi Stephen it's all getting a bit deep there for a second I'm Stephen just popped by to say hello and
he's really sort of brightened me up and cheered me up so thank you Stephen if you're watching
this before the future of course I'm not going to stop making content I've got a lot of plans
for content in general aviation private Aviation commercial Aviation as well some airport stuff
coming up too and again no more announcements I'm not going to announce big things but
stick with it and thank you for bearing with me through this interesting turbulent journey
of Willy fly around the world won't he fly around the world I can answer that question
quite easily for you now yes he will he's just not going to do it until 2026. [Music] if like
me you are fascinated of stories of Adventure in aviation people flying around the world solo this
is the video I made with my friend Michael Smith about his incredible story flying his
Sea Ray amphibious flying boat around the world definitely worth a watch if you love your Aviation