A blind British pilot landed his microlight aircraft in the northern Australian city of Darwin on Monday as he neared the end of a London to Sydney charity flight.
Miles Hilton-Barber (55) flew his Pegasus Mainair GT 450 into Darwin International Airport after strong headwinds had forced him to make an unplanned landing in Kununurra in a remote part of Western Australia on Sunday.
The blind adventurer’s arrival in Australia 46 days after setting off from London followed one of his longest flights over water, from Kupang in Indonesia.
”This has been a dream of my life,” he told reporters after touching down in Darwin.
”I can hardly believe I am here in Oz. I will believe it when someone sticks a cold beer in my hand. I’ve been hinting at it but it hasn’t happened yet.”
Hilton-Barber, who has been blind for 25 years, has travelled 22 000km across 19 countries with the aim of raising £1-million to fight blindness in developing countries.
Hilton-Barber, with a sighted co-pilot, relies on speech output from his navigation instruments to steer his course, directing the microlight from a wireless keyboard.
”It’s a very primitive form of flying, but for a blind man it’s wonderful because it is very sensual. You can smell the smells coming up from the ground and I can feel the temperature, the wind, the cold,” he said.
He will make several stops within Australia before reaching Sydney on Saturday to become the first blind pilot to fly half-way across the world.
”We’ve had a few dodgy flights,” he said. ”Over the Lebanese mountains at [4 000m] we got caught in a very bad, freaky snowstorm.
”We had ice all over the plane and icicles on our suits.” — AFP
