Flying around the world solo in an aircraft i mean who would want to do something like that?
Stupid Covid! Now it's one thing to want to fly yourself around the world solo in
an aircraft it's another thing to want to do that when you're still
a teenager now the world record for the youngest solo around the world pilot was actually held by
Australian a few years ago a guy called Lachie Smart in 2016. that record was then broken in
2018 by an American pilot and now in 2021 a uk based pilot by the name of Travis Ludlow
is attempting to break that record to become the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world travis
hello where where on earth are you right now in a hotel by the looks of it but where are you
yeah i'm in uh montana right now now look a little bit of background on travis you keep popping up in
everyone's feed at the moment i was down at the airport the other day people were talking to me
have you heard about this guy who's trying to fly around the world let the people know kind
of a bit about your background and and what it is you're attempting to do right now well
a lot of people think that uh uh my family all uh yeah they they're all aviation but yeah i'm
the only one in my family who flies started flying gliders uh well i had my first trial lesson in the
glider when i was 12 which was really exciting and uh i kind of got hooked onto it from there and uh
continued my training uh continued flying Wednesday and glider when i was 14 picked up my
ppl uh on my 17th birthday now attempting to uh break the world record of the youngest person to
fly solo around the world so who holds it right now whose record are you trying to beat Mason
Andrews he's from Louisiana he's uh he was 18 and 163 days old so what are you now i'm 18 and uh
about 135 days or something with a lot of people who who look at doing a round-the-world flight
it's all about take as long as you can you know you take three or four months you stop everywhere
get out and have a look around but you've got a specific date that you need to get back before
yes so i i need to be back by uh end of july but actually i'm well ahead of schedule yeah
i plan doing a four out four to four and a half hours of flying a day i find that you know that's
too easy i guess um i'm well ahead of schedule planned arrival date back in the uk sometimes
the early beginning of july so you know second or third of july it's actually going really well
so far i haven't had many delays so where have you been so far from the netherlands flew over germany
uh to poland estonia latvia lithuania all those countries uh landed in russia in uh
puskov is the name of the airport did a uh circled moscow about 500 feet above ground
level in moscow that's the lowest they didn't allow me any higher so here i am 500 feet
that was a bit scary but no that was really exciting well it's a beautiful day here in
moscow just getting ready to fly to uh yucatorinburg
getting further and further away from home perfect day for it let me show you they're
absolutely brilliant yeah 40 over there it's gonna be a good flight
so see you guys in the air i'm really curious to fly through russia and i've heard
i think russia gets a bit of a bad reputation sometimes especially with some other pilots online
it has done in the past the people i've dealt with in the past there have been incredible i think you
know evgeny as well from mac aviation i'm really looking forward to flying through there i think
it's really opening up to general aviation and have you found the attitude towards you when you
went through it's actually been quite accepting yeah exactly yeah no they're really supportive now
of general aviation i mean they still find it unusual they're like uh you know they come up with
these like huge chops and they're like oh wait a minute these these don't fit on the plane yeah
i don't have contacts on the ground in russia and every time i land there people are offering
to take me out for dinner or you know give me something to say so they're really helpful yeah
i'm curious to go i really am all right so talking about the plane then so what are you flying
yeah so i'm flying a 2001 cessna 172 uh as an r model it's been retrofitted basically with a uh
brand new engine but it now runs on jet a so it's uh really efficient it burns four gallons an hour
in cruise so i have no ferry tanks i don't need one fuel capacity is slightly smaller because of
uh jet a is heavier than have gas so i've got 44.6 gallons usable basically uh over 10 hours
of insurance i want to talk about kobe i don't want to make a big deal of it because this is a
really positive thing for you has it affected you at all on the trip so far to be honest actually
not really i mean a lot of these places it's like coronavirus isn't a big deal as long as you're
a pilot two worst places i've had that it's uh been was been uh poland and uh canada and had to
make an unplanned uh fuel stop in canada yeah some crazy headwinds yeah so what did you have you had
a 40 knot ground speed yes yeah uh well in some it got to 28 at some point because i had to call
border control and i landed and they said okay um you're technically requesting to enter the country
so we're gonna have to check to see if uh uh we can approve you or not but hopefully what i'm
hoping to do is uh uh again enter canada for fuel stop um they reject me and then i'll just continue
flying to uh greenland well i want to talk about the rest of your routing in a second um but just
before that you've obviously been through multiple flight information regions different air traffic
controllers have you find the radio operation and and talking to the different atc's along the way
it's actually been uh very easy to to be honest i've been doing it most of it um uh ifr so you
know you're getting handed over all the time apart from that you know the hardest parts have been
the accent differences and the lack of atc coverage as well a few times in russia i was
you know flying a siberian wilderness and uh had to relay my messages to the uh airliners flying
overhead i remember the first time i entered russia they um operate in meters instead of feet
i remember entered i was like okay plan planning the approach into it um and then russia that a lot
of time they've been they don't really like you doing visual approaches if you're you're coming
in ifr they cleared me down and they said okay you're clear to descend uh 1 500 meters and and
i was like uh what is that i've got an app on my phone which does those conversions i'd be straight
on there i wouldn't be able to do it in my head i had an app on my phone as well so i was just like
oh i forgot i got an app here so i pulled it up i use a jefferson plates you know approach freight
so that's another thing that's been super helpful because it is standardized across across the world
and what have you been doing for accommodation on the way around as well then so have you just been
booking stuff as you go along or have you been pre-planning that i have been pre-planning it a
few times you know i've i've you know wasted a bit of money because i thought i could make it then i
had to divert somewhere also i you know got a few people who've put me up to stay have been helpful
you know got some friends for accommodation so that's that's been really great as well good man
and so where next what's the next stop you've got you've mentioned canada and then greenland
how are you getting home well the next stop tomorrow is phoenix arizona um i'm landing at deer
valley airport because i got my instrument rating in phoenix arizona not the best place because it's
like clear blue sky is almost all the day now from there i'm essentially going to continue
zigzagging across the states because i need to fly um a minimum of 21 520 miles then from there yeah
it's uh canada greenland iceland scotland and then uh back home to the uk that's that's the routine
have you got a date in mind which is sitting there in your head my golf arrival date is the third
third of july that's when i'm planning to get back i'm not sure if you know i was i was
planning to uh fly around the world last year at 17. coronavirus was a big issue it was a big deal
and uh still is but actually it's been not as bad as i thought it was i thought
all these places would want me to quarantine i'd have to you know hassle my way out of and not give
him a quantity when you go and it's it'll settle down a lot more and you know you're not gonna be
rushed at all um you're in a faster plane as well uh it's uh yeah it's gonna be a lot it's gonna be
a lot better well yeah hopefully hopefully one day it will happen i keep um i kind of i talk to
you with a healthy mix of admiration respect and deep envy as well right now because for
people like me for other people watching people who have had plans that may have been cancelled
not as big as around the world necessarily but whatever they were it's really encouraging and
really admirable to see someone especially if your age travis like doing something like this yeah
thank you so much yeah i mean i've been watching your youtube channel as well for such a long time
as well so well hopefully there'll be some content outside of australia at some point in the future
but we'll see if we get there you've got your instagram account which obviously people can
see now to follow you here you have a website as well though with live tracking the website is www
dot around the world solo dot co so that's dot co dot uk and what now are you gonna have some
dinner now is it bedtime what's happening now i'm just looking at the uh flight plan for tomorrow
um uh i'm not sure i'm gonna turn the camera around but yeah i was just looking at the uh
flight plan and yep yeah 800 miles exactly the the flight are distances like that just natural to you
now yeah yeah it is you know i i remember the first flight to the netherlands that was two and
a half hours and i remember thinking oh this is such a long flight um but now you know i feel like
for me a short flight is five hours my old um flying instructor steve who told me my instrument
writing he described it as ripples in the pond he says when you first get your instrument rating
it's like dropping a stone in the water you go out and you come back and then the next time
you go a bit further and you come back and he said before you know it you're flying to sydney
and back which i do and then before you know it's someone like you you're planning 800 mile
legs and that's just another day of flying for you but yeah go get that record travis
we're all behind you thank you stay safe take care and thanks for joining me on this call no
problem thank you for having me on and uh we'll keep in touch all right thanks travis thank you