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Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 26 May 2019, 01:32
by blanston12
I have been following the trip of Amanda Harrison, who is trying to fly her Tiger Moth from England to Australia. She is attempting to recreate the flight of Amy Johnson, who was the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia who flew a DH.60 Gipsy Moth in May of 1930.
I learned about it because I have started my own virtual adventure flying a Tiger moth from Melbourne to England (which I will write about later), in planning my trip I was looking for information on Johnson's 1930 flight and found some news articals about Harrison.
She started her flight, leaving Biggin Hill on May 11 and has gotten as far as Rhodes. She experienced a 'Partial engine failure' after take off at Rhodes and had to return to the airport where she is currently waiting for an engineer to arrive with parts so they can repair the engine and hopefully continue the flight.
You can read more about it on her website here:
https://www.amandajharrison.com/home
Personally I think its really cool what she is doing and have even contributed to here gofundme page.
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 26 May 2019, 05:29
by Airspeed
AFAIK, that didn't make the evening TV news here, but then I don't always see it.
Thanks for the HU Joe, I will keep an eye out for updates.
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 26 May 2019, 07:31
by FlyTexas
What an amazing adventure she'll have.
Brian
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 26 May 2019, 11:46
by spot
She is a lovely lady. I did an hour in a tiger with her from Compton Abbas
for my 60 th birthday. I wish her all the luck in the world.
Brian.
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 26 May 2019, 13:02
by Tomliner
What a wonderful woman. Hope she makes it safely. Maybe she’ll write a book about her flight,hope so.
EricT
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 26 May 2019, 18:00
by Nigel H-J
WOW!! Now that is a challenging flight, just hope she makes it all the way with very little problems.
Regards
Nigel.
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 27 May 2019, 16:10
by blanston12
Her blog says the problem was a blown cylinder and that the plane is fixed and flying again.
And from the tracking map it looks like she made it to Cyprus.
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 28 May 2019, 03:21
by Airspeed
blanston12 wrote: ↑27 May 2019, 16:10
Her blog says the problem was a blown cylinder and that the plane is fixed and flying again.
And from the tracking map it looks like she made it to Cyprus.
Actually cylinder
head, Joe, and yes, she made Cyprus on 28th May.
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 29 May 2019, 17:32
by blanston12
I see from her site she has made it to Beirut Lebanon. and that her next stop will be Amman Jordan. I find this to be an interesting route, because to get to Jordan she will either have to fly through Syria, where there is an actual war going on, or through Israel, which has a militarized border with Lebanon, also the fact you were just in Israel may not make you very popular in the middle east countries your about to fly through.
Re: Flying to Australia in a tiger moth, for real
Posted: 01 Jun 2019, 17:36
by blanston12
Looks like her flight is at an end. From her press release.
**(Heart) Breaking News** Solo2Darwin
I today announced that the Solo2Darwin Challenge has been forced to pause in Beirut.
I am gutted, but I have to face up to reality. I can’t go forward right now, so I have to be patient and go again as soon as the geo-politics are sorted out. I shall be back!!
Notices to Airman (NOTAMs) issued from the Pakistan, Indian and Oman effectively closes airspace to eastbound flights from Oman to Pakistan and India (below 24,000ft) which is way above mine and GAXAN's maximum flying height.
An additional and presently insuperable problem is that the border between India and Pakistan is closed. This will not open until at least 14th June but there is no firm end in sight to the closure of this airspace.
When Solo2Darwin was planned, none of these restrictions were in place. The specific India/Pakistan border issue occurred in February this year but the airspace was reopened for a short period afterwards. So, we moved forward but the planned end to those restrictions did not take place.
Planning and Technical Support was always aware that certain parts of the world would be challenging but the escalation of problems in this region has been worse than anticipated and government restrictions cannot be ignored.
So many people offered and have given their support in many ways and we will work to complete @ Beirut, Lebanon
She had been in Beirut for a few days and I had assumed she was negotiating her passage through Syria. From what I had been reading crossing the Israeli border is not allowed and in Syria the area around Damascus,is fairly stable so I figured that would be the better route. But the problem was Pakistan not Syria. I figured the shortest flight from Oman direct to India is about 600 nm but I am not sure if that takes you into Pakistani airspace so not sure if that would be allowed, but its academic since that's way beyond the range of a Tiger Moth. Too bad.
