Route Covered Some 8,000 Miles From Crete To Cape Town

A group of pilots flying aircraft mainly build in the 1920s and 1930s has landed in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of the Vintage Air Rally.

The BBC reports that the Crete2Cape rally began November 11 on the island of Crete. Along the way, the aircraft landed beside the pyramids in Egypt and flew over Mt. Kilimanjaro before arriving in Cape Town, South Africa.

The rally website describes the event as "flying low along the Nile from Cairo to Khartoum, past the highlands of Ethiopia before the plains of Kenya and the home of African aviation in Nairobi."

Along the way, one of the aircraft reportedly suffered total engine failure, while another pilot got lost twice. That pilot was arrested in Ethiopia and landed in South Sudan rather than his intended landing site of Kenya.

Seven of the 11 aircraft that started the rally finished in Cape Town late last week. The winner of the rally was Pedro Langton from Team Socal (Canada) with his Travelair 4000, according to the event's Facebook page.

(Image from Facebook)

FMI: www.facebook.com/VintageAirRally, www.vintageairrally.com