130-hour pilot takes off for a round-the-world flight in a light airplane
“Pilot Attempting Around-the-World Flight Crosses Atlantic” (Flying):
Zara Rutherford wants to be the youngest woman to fly around the world solo, as FlyZolo. She has completed the Atlantic crossing, the first major hurdle along the way.
The 19-year-old Belgian pilot is flying a Shark Ultralight single-engine airplane approved in the rough European equivalent of the light sport category, with a maximum takeoff weight of 600 kg, retractable gear and a variable-pitch propeller.
Rutherford comes from a family of pilots, and she had more than 130 solo hours logged prior to departing on the flight.
On her FlyZolo site, she says “I want to reduce the gender gap in aviation as well as in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).” Yet a career in STEM is the opposite of flying around the world. Lots of sitting at a desk! (And, at least in a lot of U.S. states, a woman who wants to have the spending power of a man working in STEM can simply have sex with one or two men working in STEM. So there is no economic motivation for a woman to stick her nose into a stack of textbooks for 10-20 years.)
As a child of the Equality Feminism movement of the 1960s and 1970s, I’m not surprised that someone who identifies as “female” can fly. But I am surprised and impressed that someone would do this trip without an instrument rating (impossible to obtain at 130 hours, I think)!
Let’s check back in a month or two and see how this effort has unfolded?
Related:
- Around the world in 1964 (Jerrie Mock did it without a GPS)