Brian headed back on a commercial flight to London after helping us prep.
the machine- a sad farewell for me to the person who, with less than an hour to think about it on a late Sunday night, confirmed to me he would ensure I had pilots to fly me to Sydney- I just am not sure any of this woeuld have gone ahead within our tight schedule without this big-hearted man rearranging his life and persuading Richard to do the same, just so the flight would still be possible.
Simply two remarkable men who, despite their own vast experience and busy lives, dropped everyghing within a matter of half a day to make the flight possible.
Without doubt, there will becountless blind people around the world who will now see again, through the kindness and prompt actions of thes remarkable
aviators- thank you both, from the bottom of my heart.
Richard and I took off soon after midday, with the weather not looking brilliant, but our flight clearance through Lebanon and Syria ran out today!
Our first hour or so was very pleasant, with the brilliance of the blue Mediteranean showing occasionally through sunlight breaking through the clouds.
Once over the Lebanese Coast, we had to begin our climb to the minimum altitude the Lebanese civil aviation authorities stipulate- 13,000 feet.
This is, in part, to clear the coastal mountain ranges reaching up to over 7,000 feet. The low temperatures plummetted as we climbed, and we were needing to stay below the cloud base as well, that was for quite a while some 6,000 feet, with us looking for a break in the clouds before we reached the mountains. We had a running commentary with the controller asking us to climb, with us reminding him we were a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) or Visual Meterological Conditions flight, requiring us to be within sight of the ground and out of cloud.
A break allowed us to continue climbing to around 9,000-10-000 feet, with the controller urging us every higher, and us not wanting to explain that our cockpit temperatures were already around minus 13 with wind blasting around us in the urbulent air- we were concerned he may have second thoughts if he realised we were a tiny microlight, and not some sophisticated light aircraft with a heated cockpit and us flying in shirt sleeves, rather than the 9 layers of clothing we were wearing beneath our flying suits!
We ended up at around 13,000 feet, soaring high above the snow-clad mountains of Lebanon far below- a thrilling sight in the crisp, minus 25 Centigrade atmosphere.It turned out that we were entering the worst weather pattern to hit the area of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan for a number of years, with us managing to hit it right on the nail- great timing hey?! The next morning's newspaper in Aman spoke of snow storms closing major roads in the region, and emergency services hard at work.
After we were safely over the Lebanese snow-capped mountains we found a solid layer of cloud now lay beneath oud above us, with the two layers starting to close, wanting to make some sort of a Dagwood sandwich out of us. Richard took a close look at our rolling GPS system, outlining the highest obstacles beneath us, and we gingerly descended into the thick cotton wool, using our angle of bank to keep flying level, with both of us using our own instruments as a back up for each other.Within a few minutes we found ourselves being coatd in ice from the moisture in the cloud hiting it's dew point as our super-frozen aircraft and bodies flew through it. Ice began appearing on our steel braces, the leading edge of our wing, and on ourselves.
Having descended several thousand feet this way with no sign of a break in it, Richard wisely decided to climb again, and, on full power, we clawed our way back up again into the remainging gap between the cloud layers, to find ourselves looking a bit like a wedding cake with lots of icing on us! I felt down my legs, that had been feeling both very cold, with a bit of a burning sensation on them, especially my knees sticking up.To my amazement and curiosity I could feel, even through my layers of gloves, lumpy ice on my flying suit and boots that big that I was concerned about dislodging a piece that may then be blown back into the propellor a few feet behind me. We decided to maintain our height of some 9,000 feet then until out of Syrian air space with Damascus far below us, and marvelling at the fact that we were flying over an ancient biblical land, where the Apostle PPaul had his conversion experience on one of those roads down below. On entering Jordanian air space, and our GPS confirming we had lots of low-lying land below, we once again started descending through the cloud, and some 5,000 feet later we started breaking through into some claggy broken cloud, to find ourselves in a snow storm, but gratefully in sight of the ground again, with plenty of open sky btween us and the ground far below.
Our approach into Aman was another wonderful experience, with Richard explaining that further ahead down the Jordan Valley lay the Dead Sea, Israel and Jerusalem. We received a warm welcome from Markka civil airport, and were wisked into a huge, cavernous hangar.We were surrounded by a bunch of amazed crew that we had just crossed the Lebanese and Syrian mountains all the way from the Mediterranean and Cyprus. The ice had melted off our suits by then, and we crawled our way out of the microlight, laughing at each other's vain attempt to get our feet to obey us as we seemed to be flopping around more than walking for ages!
We refuelled, then headed off to the International Hotel, warmth, and an excellent meal waiting for two journalists who unfurtunately did not appear.
The brilliant flight and day was topped off at 2300 hours by my missing luggage, now located, being deliered to my hotel room!Without doubt, one of the highlights of our flights to date, leaving me feeling a sense of reverence and respect, both for the lands we had passed over, and our own little experiences far above in the fasinating headline news weather pattern we were able to experience in a very personal way.