Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

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Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:18 pm

Teenage pilot Zara Rutherford took her ultralight sports plane into the skies on Wednesday on the first leg of a 52-country, five-continent flight around the world.

The intrepid 19-year-old British-Belgian dreams one day of becoming an astronaut, but for now her goal is to become the youngest woman to circumnavigate the planet flying solo.

The first leg was a short hop across the Channel from her Belgian home town of Kortrijk to England. Her three-month voyage will then take her over oceans, deserts and the vast Siberian wilderness.

She will try to avoid daunting main air hubs -- apart from New York's busy JFK airport -- in her tiny 325-kilogramme (717-pound) Shark UL prop plane, and touch down instead on smaller airports and airfields for overnight rests and refuelling.

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She will be on her own for flights lasting five to six hours. She has secured permission to visit countries including Greenland, Honduras, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar.

While not the youngest pilot to fly around the world solo -- an 18-year-old Briton, Travis Ludlow, completed the trip in July -- Rutherford is the youngest woman to attempt the feat.

"I'm really hoping to encourage girls and young women to go into aviation and STEM -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics," she said before takeoff.

"Growing up, I didn't see many women in those fields and it was quite discouraging. So I'm hoping to change that."

Her aerial odyssey can be followed on Rutherford's website, FlyZolo.com, and on the TikTok social media app.

Rutherford has a satellite telephone and a radio to communicate with air traffic control in all the countries on her route, but in the cockpit she will be alone with her music and her podcasts.

There is no following plane with backup, but her support crew in Belgium -- including her father, a former British air force pilot -- have planned the adventure carefully, notably by setting up in advance the necessary authorisations to fly into many different national airspaces.

Crossing the Atlantic will be the first big challenge, she says, but the long trek over Siberia to Mongolia will also see her often far from civilisation if she gets into difficulties.

"I didn't sleep very well, I'm quite nervous but I'm really excited," she told AFP.

"Right now, I'm feeling a bit of disbelief. I think I will only start realising that I have actually started when I have landed in the UK."

‘Extremely proud’

Family, friends, journalists, airport staff and the town mayor turned out at Kortrijk Wevelgem Airport to see her off -- an emotional moment for her proud Belgian mother, Beatrice De Smet.

"Obviously I have a lot of mixed emotions. I'm a mum and my heart beats harder when I see her leaving like this, and with all this attention that adds to the stress, it's not easy for her," De Smet said as the tiny plane disappeared into the grey Flanders sky.

"But I'm extremely proud, not just of the flight that she's going to undertake, but of the mission that lies behind it, to inspire little girls to follow their dreams and to reach for the stars."

If everything goes according to plan, Rutherford will be arriving back in Belgium on November 4, her feet back on the ground but her eyes riveted on another horizon as she looks to pursue her engineering studies.

(AFP)
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/te ... d=msedgntp

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:24 pm

Though you remain
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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#3 Post by Undried Plum » Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:38 pm

Yon exotropic bint who might look good in Section Harvey Leader's webbing must be turning green with envy.

She once aspired to flying around the world as a way of doing something or other.

STEM that's it. STEM.

Never been done before, y'know.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Aug 18, 2021 5:12 pm

Kortrijk is an odd airfield. All the amenities of a larger airport kitted out to support 737 traffic etc. with a lovely long ribbon of tarmac and facilities, but nary a person was seen by me when I visited there two years ago. Even the check in/check out was done electronically and the hefty landing fee arrived in an e-mail the following day, and paid by bank transfer.
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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#5 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Aug 19, 2021 7:37 am

Undried Plum wrote:
Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:38 pm
Yon exotropic bint who might look good in Section Harvey Leader's webbing must be turning green with envy.

She once aspired to flying around the world as a way of doing something or other.

STEM that's it. STEM.

Never been done before, y'know.
Correct, it hasn't.

Slight twist, circum..... is a very long word for dsylecixs

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#6 Post by Ex-Ascot » Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:10 am

Good on her, hope all goes well. She doesn't seem to have a tracking page on her web site? Back seat removed so that there is no doubt about being 'solo'. And, no support aircraft flying along side. Also doubt that she is wearing RAF wings.

Shirley there must be some sort of support though? Someone pre-positioning ahead?
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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#7 Post by FD2 » Sat Aug 21, 2021 9:52 pm

Yes - really good luck to her on a genuine attempt to fly it solo. Also on her quest to tempt youngsters away from 'arts' type subjects to something that's been neglected for the last few years - the STEM subjects.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#8 Post by Undried Plum » Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:23 am

She's in Kulusuk. Taking a couple of days off as everything shuts down totally in Greenland for Sundays.

Dunno whether she's teaching science to kids though.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#9 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:28 am

UP, she is not teaching but inspiring. Many teachers teach; some teachers inspire.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#10 Post by Undried Plum » Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:45 am

I hope she's inspiring teachers to teach.

The bit that I don't get is why some females expect us all to believe that it's somehow amazing that females can fly aeroplanes. Nowadays all females (and some others) invoke the STEM acronym as a matter of routine in their publicity as if the trip is some kind of messianic mission from god.

That ghastly fakery woman who claimed to have flown solo around the world, and was awarded a medal by The Ancient and Worshipful Company of Wankers Tossers Dressers Poseurs and Pilots for having pretended to have done so is an example of that crap. She has no academic qualifications in any of the sciences and has actually bragged that she hates modern technology and that she's happiest when it's just her in a biplane with no modern gizmos, and yet she too invoked the tired old STEM routine.

Good luck to the little rich kid for doing what she's doing, but please spare us from the STEM cliche.

Group Captain Maggie Harvey RAF(VRT), who is an academically qualified engineer, has been bragging for years that she's going to do an Earthrounder trip in her DA-42 with ferry tanks. She postponed it because her support plane pilot was a boyfriend with whom she fell out. A support plane ferfuxake! Did Amy Johnston or Amelia Earhart or Sheila Scott have a support aircraft? I don't think so.

I'm much more impressed by a female setting an aviation record for having done something, such as Sheila Scott being the first person to fly equator-to-equator via the North Pole, rather than merely being the first female to do something or the tallest woman or the shortest woman or the oldest woman or the youngest.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#11 Post by unifoxos » Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:04 am

Can an aircraft like that really do Karachi to Dubai in one hop? (and still have a reserve)
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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#12 Post by llondel » Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:31 pm

Undried Plum wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:45 am
I'm much more impressed by a female setting an aviation record for having done something, such as Sheila Scott being the first person to fly equator-to-equator via the North Pole, rather than merely being the first female to do something or the tallest woman or the shortest woman or the oldest woman or the youngest.
That's sometimes hard to achieve simply because some bloke probably managed it back when it was a blokish thing to do and women were expected to stay at home and cook dinner for him when he got back.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#13 Post by Undried Plum » Sun Aug 22, 2021 11:07 pm

llondel wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:31 pm
Undried Plum wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:45 am
I'm much more impressed by a female setting an aviation record for having done something, such as Sheila Scott being the first person to fly equator-to-equator via the North Pole, rather than merely being the first female to do something or the tallest woman or the shortest woman or the oldest woman or the youngest.
That's sometimes hard to achieve simply because some bloke probably managed it back when it was a blokish thing to do and women were expected to stay at home and cook dinner for him when he got back.

Yes. But that that was waay back more than than a hundred years ago.

Wimmin learned than it ain't took a cock and a pair o' balls to fly a hairyplane long before one of 'em one took took the time and somebody's else's money to fly long distances.

Having men to do the organising and to fund the money was always men's work. That bit hasn't changed.

Wossisnamer, the Spirit of Artifice, was a supreme expert in the spirit of such *****.

The first wummun to die in such an exhibition was the was the first one to die on a first (wumman) solo so to do. She went in on solo flight in a hydrogen balloon flight over a fireworks display. 1810; I think.

She, too, never lived long enough to learn how to park it.

Most of 'em don't need to learn the art. They have men to to do that stuff, like chocking the wheels and do that oily stuff.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#14 Post by FD2 » Sun Aug 22, 2021 11:58 pm

Yes UP, there's too much misogyny about which has been holding these wimmin back. It's time we blokes worked at getting them into more manly pursuits, like acting as chockheads or even flying without a bloke backing them up, etc. They've been molly coddled for too long! It's just popped into my braincell's memory - we had two female licensed engineers in my next to last company who were great and didn't look like coal heavers - didn't mind getting good and greasy either. ;;)

From a flying point of view, in my last company in the SNS we had three female pilots and one converted one. The convert was always a very good pilot and great company. Of the three others one was pretty capable and good company, one was a complete and annoying fusspot and the third less use than an empty co-pilot's seat, but very glamorous. :p None of those three was up to snuff compared to any of the male pilots in that particular company, though some of the blokes I flew with in the NNS were really pretty average.

I still believe that if this Belgian woman can get some of the excessive number of young women away from 'arty' subjects she will have done a good deed. Sadly I'm a bit cynical and suspect that all will happen will be a few who want to be headline grabbing glamour girls.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#15 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:22 pm

unifoxos wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:04 am
Can an aircraft like that really do Karachi to Dubai in one hop? (and still have a reserve)
https://www.shark.aero/shark-ul

Economy cruise is 15 l/h according to the above. It has a 100 ltr fuel tank and she has an extra tank in the cabin instead of a pax. We do not know what this is. Another 100 ltrs would be pushing it. Say 50? 10 hrs. Optimum cruising speed 250-270 km/h say 260. 2,600 kms without reserve. Karachi to Dubai 1,180.74 km. So it looks like she can in ball park figures but let PN look at it.
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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#16 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Aug 23, 2021 1:28 pm

I take my hat off to her father.

He seems to have wangled permits for her to fly across China and seems to have found a very deep bucket of money to fund the cost of landing and parking at JFK. :YMAPPLAUSE:

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#17 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Aug 23, 2021 1:48 pm

Why is this STEM stuff only aimed at/by wimmin?
I still believe that if this Belgian woman can get some of the excessive number of young women away from 'arty' subjects she will have done a good deed.

When my daughter was at Medical School she was in a great big gender majority. She tells me that between two thirds and three quarters of her students that she teaches at post-Grad level in advanced Anaesthetics are wimmin.

It's not [only] the females who need to be encouraged to get into Science and Technology and Medicine. We need to persuade all intelligent students at secondary school level that it's cool to be a swot and that it's cool to get rich by doing adult stuff like engineering and doctoring instead of doing rip-off stuff like estate agency and lawyering and politicking.

Good luck to the wee lassie flying around the world. ^:)^

What grips my rectum is the crap about "STEM" being the motivation; and all the money-grabbing that goes along with that slogan, to fund her otherwise perfectly reasonable personal ambition.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#18 Post by FD2 » Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:14 pm

It's not [only] the females who need to be encouraged to get into Science and Technology and Medicine. We need to persuade all intelligent students at secondary school level that it's cool to be a swot and that it's cool to get rich by doing adult stuff like engineering and doctoring instead of doing rip-off stuff like estate agency and lawyering and politicking.

Completely agree. Yes - politicking- shut down PPE courses and make the buggers go out and work for a living, then set the minimum age for an MP at 30 after at least 10 years of real employment, not parasitic things like money manipulation and futures etc. :))

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#19 Post by Rwy in Sight » Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:06 pm

The issue with real employment is the need to be real hence hard to define when it can be a kind of an expensive placement in a friends business with possible advantage to both parties.

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Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumnavigate the world solo

#20 Post by FD2 » Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:12 pm

Get Rosa Klebb on the interviews for suitability to serve as an MP !

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