Carol Ann Garratt has flown around the world in a Mooney before — taking her time, on a seven-month trip that she wrote about in a book, “Upon Silver Wings.” This time, she is taking a co-pilot and aiming to break the round-the-world record for single-engine aircraft, by making the flight start-to-finish in just seven days. The team will fly for 140 hours and make only nine stops. Garratt said it’s not just flying time that counts, but total time. “We’ll have ground crew to meet us at each stop, to help fill up with fuel, dump our trash, pick up our supplies, stretch, and get back in the air,” she told AVweb at Sun ‘n Fun this week. “We’ll take turns sleeping in the airplane. We’re installing a big extra fuel tank behind the seats, so we’re hoping we will be able to recline at least a little.” Garratt and teammate Carol Foy, a past winner of the Air Race Classic, plan to launch this December. They are paying all of their own expenses, but hope the world flight will raise $1 million for ALS research.
More than 350,000 people worldwide suffer from ALS, also know as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for which there is no cure.
