Mac Rutherford… the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world

At the age of 17, the Belgian-British Mac Rutherford won the bet: today he became the youngest pilot to circumnavigate the world alone in an ultralight aircraft. It took him five months and one day to achieve this goal. This afternoon he landed at the small airport of the city of Radomir, in Bulgariaat a distance of about an hour from Sophia.

Wearing his pilot’s uniform and a blue helmet that covered his long hair, the thin teenager did not hide his excitement but also his sadness that this “fantastic” trip, which gave him “the feeling of complete freedom”, had reached the end of it.

“I want to show that young people can make a difference, chase your dreams!”he said.

Mac covered 54,000 kilometers in 221 hours, passed through 30 countries and faced extreme temperatures, up to 48 degrees Celsius, among his other adventures. At the end of July it was forced by strong winds to land on Atu, an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, west of Alaska. At one point he found that the food he had with him was soaked by the fuel and satisfied his hunger by eating chocolates, his parents and sister, who were present at the reception, said.

“This kind of trip requires enormous self-control, on all levels, you have to be able to control your emotions, your anxiety,” explained his mother, Beatrice de Smet, who initially struggled to accept that her son would be leaving for around the world alone.

“He did it like an ace!” said on his part Sam Rutherfordthe young man’s father and a retired military pilot himself.

The war in Ukraine was another headache for the young man, who was forced to change his original plans, preparation and route. Instead of flying over Russia, it deviated from its course and passed south through Pakistan, India, South Korea and Japan. The most difficult part of his journey was across the Pacific Ocean, to the USA, as he admitted. It took ten hours.

Mack has had a passion for aircraft from a very young age. Upon his arrival in Bulgaria today, he was greeted not only by a cheering crowd but also a Guinness certificate confirming his record. To date, the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world is Britain’s Travis Ludlow, who accomplished this feat at the age of 18. Because Mack flew in an ultralight aircraft, he also broke a second record, held for just a few months by his sister, Zara, who is the youngest female pilot to fly solo around the world at the age of 19. Zara didn’t seem bothered by the “loss” of her record, saying she was very proud of Mack and even presented him with his award herself.

Mack’s next goal is much more pedestrian: “to go back to school and make up lost ground.”

RES-EMP

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