Around the world in 50 flights for veteran pilot
Two veteran fly boys, with 105 years combined flying experience, will soon embark on the flight of a lifetime aiming to fly around the world in 50 flights.
Taupō’s Barry Payne will be accompanied by his close friend and adventurer Bob Bates, 84, an Australian who has lived in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for more than 60 years.
When they complete their adventure the pair will hold the record for the oldest combined-age crew to complete the journey at 80.5 years.
What’s even more impressive is it’s not the first time Payne’s flown around the world in his trusty 1962 Piper Comanche, call sign ZK-BAZ.
In 2019, Payne and wife Sandra flew around the globe to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and the 50th anniversary of Hamilton salesman and amateur aviator Cliff Tait’s impressive effort when Tait became the first person to round the planet in a single engine aircraft.
Their effort saw them fly east on a trip that took them 175 days and 217 flying hours.
The aim of “World Flight 100” is to commemorate the centenary of the first flight around the world in 1924 when a group of United States airmen completed the challenge.
The pair will fly westwards, closely re-enacting the original 1924 flight route.
“It’s like an addiction, when you have done it once, you want to do it again,” Payne said.
Payne will fly out of Taupō on the 23rd or 24th of May to meet his mate at his home at Mt Hagen in the highlands of PNG.
Leaving there on June 1, they will fly north to Kagoshima, Japan, and cross the entirety of Russia before heading to the United Kingdom where they will stop at Brough, Yorkshire.
From there, it’s across the vast North Atlantic Ocean to the USA where they will fly to Seattle.
Then they’ll head down the remote Aleutian Islands (where they have two barrels of fuel waiting on Adak Island) to Kamchatka, and then back to Kagoshima.
They are due back at Mt Hagen on September 28, the same day 100 years earlier when the US airman touched down to complete their round the world journey.
“We have planned the trip one flight at a time,” Payne said. “Bureaucracy requirements can be difficult, such as visas and overflight approvals.
“Fuel is not readily available everywhere so sometimes you have to make arrangements in advance to have it prepositioned.” He said a good example would be flying down the Aleutian Islands. “The last settlement on the Aleutian Islands is a place called Aduk. There’s no fuel there so we had to ship it from Seattle on the one barge that goes there once a year.”
Payne said they’d use an estimated 10,000 litres of fuel. He said age was not a barrier and both were in good shape and had completed the necessary medical checks to allow them to fly. However, they will not be flying near the Ukraine or through the Middle East, for obvious reasons.
Payne began his aviation career in 1963 with the Royal New Zealand Air Force and trained as an aircraft technician before becoming qualified to fly both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.
In civilian life he took to the skies as a commercial helicopter and fixed wing pilot and is a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer and life member of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators.
Fully laden, ZK-BAZ can carry 530 litres of fuel in its seven fuel tanks giving it a maximum range of 3000km cruising at 300kts.
Of course, there’s the all important question - what do they use for a toilet?
On this trip, they will be using Payne’s trusty honey jars with screw top lids for number ones - they’ll wait until firmly on the ground if they need a number two.