CarolAnn Garratt is here at Oshkosh promoting her round-the-world flight. She wants to break the speed record, which currently sits at an average speed of 54mph.
She’s confident that, with her co-pilot sharing the flying and, sleeping in shifts, she can hit an average speed of 140mph.
Her noble steed for this record attempt is her personal Mooney M20J – N220FC.
“We’re not stopping in hotels; we’ll be doing a gas ‘n’ go and probably sleep in three-hour shifts,” she says.
She’s no stranger to flying round the world and, in 2003, did a much bigger tour of the globe.
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She is aiming to raise $1million to help fund research into Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) – or Lou Gehrig’s disease – with the ALS Therapy Development Institute.
Departure is set for some time between December 3 and 5 from Orlando, Florida. She will stop in San Diego, California, and then head out over the Pacific to Lihue, Hawaii, and then further into Guam. After that it is Thailand, then on to Oman in the Arabian Gulf before crossing Africa and stopping in Gabon. From there she will head for the Cape Verde islands before heading back to Florida.
“The part that worries me is Africa. I have contacts with local knowledge in all the other stops. I’m working on getting a contact but I’ll feel much better when I know I have someone to meet me there,” she says.
“Fatigue will play a major role in our trip. We haven’t planned to stop and stay in any hotels but we will if we need to. We’ll swap seats and roles at each leg,” she says.
Garratt is paying for the trip and reckons the bill will end up in the $25,000 region. “All the sponsorship money is going straight to the charity,” she says. To date she has raised $116,000.
Her M20J has the long-range wing tanks, which give a 100 USG capacity. The plane will lose its rear seats and be fitted with a FAA-approved 120 USG tank.
“We’ll have 24-hour endurance with our 220 gallon fuel capacity,” she says.
Source: Flight International
