Battles Heavy Weather On Flight From Philippines

By ANN Contributor Daniel Ford

Welsh veterinarian Maurice Kirk, who is hoping to fly his 1943 Piper L-4 "Liberty Girl" around the world, landed safely on Taiwan Wednesday after battling thunderstorms on his flight from the Philippines.

Maurice was a camp follower during the London-Sydney air race in April 2001, covering nearly 14,000 miles and managing to keep up with the official competitors by flying seven days a week instead of the scheduled six. He was in the air 200 hours over the course of 28 days.

That left "Liberty Girl" on the far side of the globe while Maurice pondered ways of bringing her back to Wales. Last year he took part in a race around New Zealand, and in November he decided that the thing for him to do was press on to the eastward, for the United States by way of Russia and Alaska. To do that, however, he first had to fly west for a time.

After battling New Zealand authorities for the right to take off in a grossly overloaded airplane, he made the jump to remote Norfolk Island. From there, on November 8, it was an even longer jump to Australia: 788 nautical miles. He was 11 hours and 30 minutes in the air, in a plane that left the Piper factory with a 12-gallon tank. (Liberty Girl has since been refitted with wing tanks, an overhead tank in the cockpit, and a quantity of 20-liter jerry jugs from which Maurice can transfer fuel in flight.)

He began his northward trek on April 25, from Darwin 400 miles to the Indonesia island of East Timor. Two days later he flew another staggering over-water leg: 700 miles and 11 hours to Borneo. Foiled in his attempt to get clearances through Vietnam and China, he flew to the Philippines on May 7.

Wherever he goes next, Maurice faces a problem in Russia. It seems that light aircraft must be diesel-powered, and nobody yet has come up with a way to put a diesel engine in an airplane with an official gross weight of under 1200 pounds.

Maurice bought a white shirt with epaulets to smooth his way past Southeast Asian officialdom. He wears an immersion suit for over-water flights, however. Here he is indicating the amount of fuel remaining after his 11-hour flight to Borneo.

A novelist and journalist based in New Hampshire, Dan Ford flies a 1946 Piper Cub rebuilt as an L-4, but has never flown it across a body of salt water.

FMI: www.kirkflyingvet.com