After spending most of my life Motor racing I thought that I would realise a long held ambition, to learn to fly. A contributing factor was that Qantas had developed a monopoly on the Port Macquarie route. So in 2003 I bought a Diamond Katana and soon had a private licence. After realising I would need more than two seats and an IFR aircraft I ordered a Cirrus SR20, which I picked up from the factory in January of 04. With an American pilot to keep an eye on me (Keith Amaro) I flew it to san Francisco from Duluth, and later organised Mike Cooke to ferry it out for me. I then got stuck into my instrument ratings and was flying IFR and lots of hours by late 2004. Then, on the basis of “Business is good, life is short” I came up with the idea of flying a plane out from Duluth over Greenland and Iceland etc. An adventure I wanted and an adventure it is.

For a co pilot I first rang my friend Michael Hall. He has been my friend for 35 years, an experienced VFR pilot, and a lot of fun to be with. After some time it was evident this trip was impossible for him time wise. By this time my brother John had put his hand up. A good choice and a good opportunity for us to spend time together, I only see him at weddings and funerals., then the dates blew out, he was committed to the Simpson Desert and couldn’t go! Who now, well there was this guy called Clyde Stubbs in Brisbane who was a pillar of the Cirrus established in Australia , I had met him and thought he was a knowledgeable, serious guy. He had done the homework for a previous trip which never came off and he was instrument rated as well. He and his wife Sue flew down and had a weekend in Port Macquarie to make sure that we both thought that we could live together in a small plane. We are quite opposites in personality so we figured that this could work.

In the end Clyde did a lot of the planning, Julie and I were committed to a trip to Europe with Mercedes, and while I was in Barcelona my company financial controller rang to resign. Now this turned out to be for the better, but the timing was not good!

Anyway I had sold my beautiful little SR20 to Steve Kreft in Launceston, for delivery in August and I was right to go!