19 Year Old Around the World Trip - Starts 6-2

I think you're being a little bit hard on the Beaver, Ward. He's a 19 year old software engineering student at MIT. If he weren't doing this, he'd be out pulling the wings off of flies or gunning down all the women who definitely aren't having sex with him. Think of it as keeping him off the streets.
 
Acrofox said:
"You don’t have to be old to achieve huge endeavors,"
"Nothing is impossible,"
"etc, etc, etc,"

... as long as daddy's rich.

But don't worry, he'll be the next person standing there telling you how hard he worked to get where he is.

I hate this crap. Age is completely irrelevant here—all it really says to me is: "Look how rich I am! I can fly around the world at 19, and that makes me special!"

Show me the kid who has to deal with growing up poor, works odd jobs to support himself through a soul-killing public-school education, and somehow manages to scrape enough together to get his pilots license, then finds a way to do something like this.

I'm sick of aviation news consisting primarily of people who solo five different types of airplanes on their 16th birthday on daddy's dime, then brag about their life and how well it's going.

There's no story here.

-Fox
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It was no different than mountain bike racing. I was eating PB&J and living in the back of a VW bus. My competitors were staying in the lodge and they didn't need two jobs during school and summer to pay for nicer bikes. I still had a good time.

Money doesn't make you happy but it sure makes life easy.
 
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Cal Goat said:
"Here, Ms. Earhart, let me help you press the Direct and Enter keys. No, no, the autopilot will take it from here but that was some excellent right rudder usage on takeoff. Go ahead and update your blog, I'll take the comms."
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To be totally fair, you also have to remember to close the inertial separator. Or, well, you're really supposed to. And if you want to excel at flying a PC-12, you can also try flaring upon landing...takes the landings from "perfectly adequate" to "charmony soft".
 
Boris Badenov said:
To be totally fair, you also have to remember to close the inertial separator. Or, well, you're really supposed to. And if you want to excel at flying a PC-12, you can also try flaring upon landing...takes the landings from "perfectly adequate" to "charmony soft".
Click to expand...

Truth
 
Boris Badenov said:
To be totally fair, you also have to remember to close the inertial separator. Or, well, you're really supposed to. And if you want to excel at flying a PC-12, you can also try flaring upon landing...takes the landings from "perfectly adequate" to "charmony soft".
Click to expand...

Yea but you technically dont even have to close the sep. I think the only things you really have to do are start the engine and turn on the gens... ecs is optional depending on how high you wanna go.
 
Acrofox said:
"You don’t have to be old to achieve huge endeavors,"
"Nothing is impossible,"
"etc, etc, etc,"

... as long as daddy's rich.

But don't worry, he'll be the next person standing there telling you how hard he worked to get where he is.

I hate this crap. Age is completely irrelevant here—all it really says to me is: "Look how rich I am! I can fly around the world at 19, and that makes me special!"

Show me the kid who has to deal with growing up poor, works odd jobs to support himself through a soul-killing public-school education, and somehow manages to scrape enough together to get his pilots license, then finds a way to do something like this.

I'm sick of aviation news consisting primarily of people who solo five different types of airplanes on their 16th birthday on daddy's dime, then brag about their life and how well it's going.

There's no story here.

-Fox
Click to expand...

I wonder if this was part of his plan after being awarded the Thiel sponsorship..
 
gotWXdagain said:
Yea but you technically dont even have to close the sep. I think the only things you really have to do are start the engine and turn on the gens... ecs is optional depending on how high you wanna go.
Click to expand...

I had forgotten that you have to turn on the gens! That's some workload, there. •, the Hakersaurus does that for you, and it was designed when God was a child. Yep, that's a mighty beast of an airplane, that PC-12. Only the steely-eyed need apply!
 
Boris Badenov said:
I had forgotten that you have to turn on the gens! That's some workload, there. , the Hakersaurus does that for you, and it was designed when God was a child. Yep, that's a mighty beast of an airplane, that PC-12. Only the steely-eyed need apply!
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Frigging MU2 drivers think they're Richthofen and Hoover rolled into one....

:)
 
gotWXdagain said:
Yea but you technically dont even have to close the sep. I think the only things you really have to do are start the engine and turn on the gens... ecs is optional depending on how high you wanna go.
Click to expand...

Not in the PC-12/47E. Everything is automatic, including the ECS.
 
Acrofox said:
"You don’t have to be old to achieve huge endeavors,"
"Nothing is impossible,"
"etc, etc, etc,"

... as long as daddy's rich.

But don't worry, he'll be the next person standing there telling you how hard he worked to get where he is.

I hate this crap. Age is completely irrelevant here—all it really says to me is: "Look how rich I am! I can fly around the world at 19, and that makes me special!"

Show me the kid who has to deal with growing up poor, works odd jobs to support himself through a soul-killing public-school education, and somehow manages to scrape enough together to get his pilots license, then finds a way to do something like this.

I'm sick of aviation news consisting primarily of people who solo five different types of airplanes on their 16th birthday on daddy's dime, then brag about their life and how well it's going.

There's no story here.

-Fox
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with you here.....BUT,

There are two things that impress (scare me just a little) me here. First, this "kid" (and yes, at my age, 19 still seems like a kid to me since he's my daughter's age), is flying this trip SOLO, around the world...and it's a BIG world! That's a pretty impressive feat in itself. It's a little more than just cranking up the ole' Bananza and flying 50 miles for a $100 hamburger and then logging x/c time. The planning, logistics and execution can be daunting for this flight and he'll have to deal with a lot of the unexpected by himself.

The second thing is, he'll be over a vast amount of unfriendly and hostile water with just one piston driven engine chugging along! I don't care how statistically reliable piston engines have become, there is absolutely NO WAY on God's green Earth I would even attempt that. Maybe it's youthful bravado, ignorance or a false sense of security but you'd have to be just a little crazy to attempt it. I wouldn't even want to do it in a single engine turbine either.

At my age I like my 3 GE's or Pratt's purring under my butt coupled to 3 IRS's, dual GPS's/FMC's and dual autopilots....Oh, also a bathroom, bunks and catering.
 
A300Capt said:
I tend to agree with you here.....BUT,

There are two things that impress (scare me just a little) me here. First, this "kid" (and yes, at my age, 19 still seems like a kid to me since he's my daughter's age), is flying this trip SOLO, around the world...and it's a BIG world! That's a pretty impressive feat in itself.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong... on a personal level I think it's pretty awesome. If I was having a conversation with him and he mentioned he was doing it, I'd think it was pretty cool. But, to quote Applejack, he's tooting his own horn louder than the brass section of a marching band, and making it sound like it's a "feat" of some sort. It's not. It's a bit of a logistics exercise, and a lot of faith in Continental. But I exercise my faith in Continental just as much every day flying single-engine wheelplanes over unlandable terrain and 38° water*.

-Fox
* - I don't actually have that much faith. Let's just call it "hope".
 
Ive met Matt numerous times. He is extreamly smart and was tought at the operator I work at, in fact, my good fried was his CFI. I wish him the best of luck. We hope to see him back in Aberdeen soon. The Amelia thing is a JOKE! The NG is so easy to fly and program that what she is doing is just downright dumb. Put her in a beech 18 with a navigator and the basic instruments and I might be impressed.
 
I'll bet that engine is making all kinds of weird noises right now. Or is it?

http://www.limitless-horizons.org/

2vsen12.png
 
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