Hayward Aviation supported Simon Oliphant-hope's attempt to set a new world record for the fastest helicopter pilot around the world. This is his account; "There's nowhere to put it. Just rocks everywhere, nothing flat enough to land on. That's it, It's over... it's all over..."

The Beginning

This is my account of attempting to break a World Speed Record. As you can imagine with 195 hours of flying and around six months planning I could easily fill 50 pages, but for now I would just like to highlight the build up and a few of the more memorable moments. The story first set root back in 2001 when I was employed by Eastern Atlantic Helicopters at Shoreham Airport. I had been approached a number of times by the Managing Director Simon Oliphant-Hope and Manager Emma Coates to come on board for a six month job of logistics and operations support. Simon had recently come back from a seminar in the US where he listened to a speaker by the name of Ron Bower - a name and gentleman we would come to know well. Ron told of his trip in a Bell 206 Jetranger flying eastbound around the world and setting a new world record time whilst doing it.

2001 saw our first attempt in an MD Explorer fail due to the terrorist attacks on the USA of September 11th and the subsequent international airspace closures that followed. Although the flight was completed in 21 days, the route had been changed considerably, this combined with the shortfall in mileage covered meant the record was not to be ours... this time...

If at first you don't succeed...

The 2004 helicopter was an MD500E, but not just any one, this was the only approved single pilot IFR MD500E in the world. A team of five engineers and one avionics technician worked full time on it for five weeks in preparation. The helicopter had a three axis auto-pilot, dual batteries, dual heated pitots, satellite phone with email, standby IFR instruments, global positioning systems, the list goes on. The sat phone was wired into the intercom so Simon could use it through his headset whilst flying. But as fast as things went in, other things were coming out, anything to save weight; sound proofing, steps, carpet, anything that didn't have to be there was gone. Last but not least the two rear seats were swapped for a 600lb aux fuel tank. This combined with the 400lb main tank gave a sea level endurance of five hours.

Simon was 40 years old and had around 5500 hrs flying experience, a Commercial Pilots Licence with Instrument Rating and CFI (Instructors Rating). I was 26, holder of a Commercial Helicopter Pilots Licence and Private Fixed Wing Licence with around 850 hrs total time. Some additional training for Simon included a refresher course on underwater helicopter survival training. This was carried out at the superb facility of Andark Diving in Southampton and I was invited to join Simon on the training. For the real flight Simon had an immersion suit with two survival packs (land and maritime), two minute 'on demand' breathing apparatus, diving goggles and a life jacket with splash hood. Plus three personal emergency locator Transmitters (ELT's) and one aircraft fitted ELT. If any of these were triggered an alarm would be sent out on a number of emergency frequencies, which would then fix his position. Just to speed things up I had contacted RAF Kinloss rescue coordination centre and passed them Simons details, my contact details, each of the ELT's serial numbers for identification and a copy of the route and schedule.

The rules for the attempt are simple - an organisation by the name of the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) who form part of the Olympic Committee govern all World Air Sports. They then delegate a National Air Sport Control (NAC) in each country to assist in controlling the attempt. Our NAC was the Helicopter Club of Great Britain and my contact there was Tim Gilbert. The rules state the course must be approved in advance, must be at a length of not less than the Tropic of Cancer which is 36,787.559 km and must be at a latitude of less than 66 degrees 33 minutes, or in our case the Arctic Circle. The route is measured point to point by great circle distance and is computed by WGS84 latitude and longitude (WGS84 means World Geodetic System 1984 - basically a universally agreed reference of position). As the route is approved beforehand you cannot change the route once you have started, so regardless of reason you have to land or overfly every control point you submit.

Some problems I encountered in the planning stages were in Russia. There are places even the Russian Escort (whom by Russian Law had to accompany Simon through Russia) refused to stay overnight. He said that he would not be able to protect Simon, or there was no hotel at all, or the helicopter would be taken apart if left overnight, or the airport would be closing early on a particular day. So many or's... the route was constantly changed to accommodate all of these factors and remember every change had a knock on effect. For example, Simon needed to arrive in Phoenix for an overnight stop to have a 100 hr inspection carried out, if he arrived in the morning then it would be completed during the day which meant a days flying lost. Another problem was Greenland, they close on Sundays and public holidays. It sounds ridiculous but its true. If you think about it, making a route with 400nm legs, stopping certain places on certain days but still trying to do three legs per day, it is a very difficult task. Many special arrangements and requests had to be made. We had chosen June as this appeared to be the best time to optimise on climate and light conditions across the planned route. The experience of the first attempt helped tremendously but because of September 11th it was now harder than ever. Everywhere was so security conscious and wanted to take their time with clearances and customs, but time we didn't have.

The route took Simon northeast across Holland, Germany, Sweden, and Estonia before arriving at the end of the first day in St. Petersburg. From here he flew eastbound across Russia, and then across the Bering Strait of the North Pacific into Alaska. Onwards he trekked southeast into Canada and down the west coast of the USA. His flight across the US zig zaged around a bit to make up the minimum mileage required. Flying at such high latitudes for the ocean crossings meant a shorter distance than travelling at lower latitudes, such as the equator. After eventually arriving in Florida, Simon flew north up the east coast into Canada then tracked northbound further still up the east side of the Hudson Bay. From here he turned east again crossing the broken pack ice and icebergs toward Greenland. The final stretch was across Iceland, south to the Faeroe Islands and Scotland and finishing back at base at Shoreham Airport, England. We were planning on 18.5 days, how long did it take? Read on...

Launch day

With the ear piercing ring of my alarm I sat up in bed startled yet still only semi conscious. 0330 the backlit display read 'I can't believe we are about to do this again' I said to myself. Too excited and nervous to eat I got myself together and left for work. No other traffic on the road, the sun just showing signs of pushing light over the horizon. I thought back to 2001 and the many sunrises I saw. I remembered thinking how many people miss the best and most beautiful part of the day and how I would try to get up early to see more myself. I didn't of course, but I knew these next few weeks I would be seeing plenty once more. I just hoped with it, each day would bring good fortune for I new bad luck could lead to a good friend not coming back alive!

At 03:31:00 UTC (0431 local) on June 4th 2004 Simon Oliphant-Hope began his epic journey and departed on track after a fast paced flyby. I would be lying if I said I didn't have difficulty composing myself. I looked across at the well wishers, there was a mixture of excited and concerned faces looking out as Simon disappeared into the darkness. What would the next three weeks hold, I knew it was going to be tough, I knew Simon was going to push hard, I just hoped I didn't let him down.

The first few days brought many of the expected operational difficulties. As Simon got further into far northeast Siberia things became more difficult still when the weather turned for the worse and the winds shifting around to the east bringing strong headwinds. The crossing of the Bering Strait between Russian Siberia and Alaska was always going to be a nail biting one, but this took it to the extreme. I had calculated Simon could take a maximum headwind component of 7kts at FL050 (5000 ft) or above. Higher altitudes meant better fuel consumption but if he flew to high he would be in cloud and in icing conditions. As I had been following the charts for the last couple of days I could see the wind trend, it wasn't going to change in time. We had two options:

Option one: Divert back into Russia. This would be unscheduled stop, which meant a change to the approved Russian Flight Permit and would in turn mean a new one being issued. The problem here was that all revisions were made in Moscow, which was 7 hours behind our time zone and probably meant a 24 to 36 hour delay.

Option two: Divert to a small island in the North Pacific called St. Lawrence Island which was just inside US Airspace. The problem with this idea was that the airport was disused and the Island was barely inhabited so no fuel. But if I could get fuel there then it might just work. I eventually made a contact at Nome Alaska who operated amongst other things a Casa 212 freight plane. We negotiated a deal and he had his crew fly out a 53 US gallon sealed drum of fuel with a borrowed hand pump to the aptly named Gambell Airfield. Simon didn't know if he would need fuel until he passed it, as it turns out, he did. The fuel arrived there just 30 minutes before Simon did and took 25 minutes to transfer into the helicopter. Simon continued to Alaska having ample fuel with good reserves.

The flight down through Alaska and Canada was very challenging. A large storm that had been brewing in the North Pacific hit the western coast much sooner than expected. With over 200nm between airfields the only place Simon could divert was the rocky beaches and if the tide didn't come and swallow you up a bear might, apparently they love the smell of burnt Avtur. To make matters worse still, weather information was tricky to come by. The reporting points were so far apart and most of these were located at airfields or small villages that were all at carefully selected sheltered areas. On one stretch of coastline I found lighthouses to be the best weather source for current conditions. Simon told me after that it was the hardest and most dangerous day of flying of his life. On more than one occasion he was down to 20 feet and 20 knots. We were in constant communication with him giving me position reports and me passing him lighthouse weather. Because he was so low he couldn't establish radio contact so I had Vancouver Island radar control on the phone and passed messages between them. A landing on the rocks was discussed several times. The weather opened and closed every few hundred meters and because of the gale force winds and low speed and altitude he couldn't use the autopilot for fear of it dropping out. If his hands weren't on the controls he would never grab them in time. With slow progress Simon pushed on through the weather, flying around the many small rocky islands. I kept track of his position on the charts and passed him on route terrain information. Eventually he arrived on Vancouver Island.

By the time Simon arrived in the USA we were one day and one leg behind schedule. This meant that Simon would not arrive in Phoenix for his maintenance stop at night and we would loose yet more time. We needed to relocate the inspection. Easier said than done. It was Friday evening (local time) on the day of Ronald Reagan's funeral. How do you convince a complete stranger to open up his hangar for the night with just 24hrs notice? I tracked down a friend of mine from Arizona, he tracked down a friend of his and so on. We had a promise of a place in Chino California, but couldn't get confirmation untill the next day. The problem was if our engineer didn't leave first thing he would arrive late. It was a 9 hour drive and yet another Gamble. The engineer was Eastern Atlantics Chief Engineer Simon Gibson. I told him to go for it, I trusted my friend and it paid off, he got there 60 minutes before the helicopter did.

Following the 100hr inspection, Simon made excellent progress flying across the states and made up a substantial amount of time. It was so much more aviation friendly than the rest of the trip had been. Central continental America can present a pilot with some severe thunderstorms and tornados, fortunately the later never materialised but they were always on the cards. Using live weather radars available over the Internet and updates from Simon I was able to steer him around the worst of them, we often spoke via the satellite phone.

Soon it was time to hit the east coast travelling northbound toward New York. It was here that Simon got another great surprise. Ron Bower (the existing record holder) drove for nine hours just to pick Simon up from the hotel and drive him to the airport (a ten minute drive). Ron wished him well and gave Simon a special gift... a new seat cushion. That doesn't sound much but after 150 hours of sitting, it meant the world, probably something only a pilot of Ron's experience would think of. Ron is a true gentleman and sportsman, his support throughout the trip was a pillar of strength for both of us.

Following Ron's surprise visit I coordinated (through controllers at JFK) a fly over New York City, this meant Simon would get the New York to London record as well. Now just the final stretches stood between Simon and his record, but things were now getting serious again. By the time Simon had arrived in northeast Canada he was over a day ahead of schedule and no matter how much we didn't want the time to come, it was time... time to cross the North Atlantic Ocean.

By far the worst leg of the entire trip was from Iqauluit in Canada across the Davies Strait to Godthab in Greenland. This leg is 450nm with the last 340nm across water and icebergs. The only airports within reach are the departure airport and destination, you are 110% committed once you pass the point of no return. The weather was very poor on departure but did improve but the winds were on the nose again. I could hear the tension in Simon's voice. It was difficult passing him information and advice on the best cruising levels for if I got it wrong, well I don't even want to think about it. The charts I used were the upper winds and temperature charts which were issued for selected altitudes every 6 hours. Most of the time Simon was flying between levels and between forecast periods so I had to interpolate between them. When flying legs such as this it was not uncommon to change cruising level two or three times. Simon completed the leg in a nail biting 4 hours. He had been giving me position reports which I plotted on a chart along with the time every 10 minutes. We stayed in almost constant communication evaluating the winds and weather, trying to find the best compromise for efficiency.

Fortunately each of the three Greenland airports had agreed to open for Simon's flight, for a fee of course. Simon arrived late on a Saturday evening. I had convinced a member of staff at Nuuk Airport in Godthab (entry airport in Greenland) to let me have a controller's home number; I sheepishly called him with my request for a late arrival. He was a great guy and was enthused by my story of Simon's flight around the world. He agreed to open up and furthermore to open again the following day (Sunday) so Simon could depart. The remaining airports all followed suit. Greenland had some very unusual weather whilst Simon was there... it was nice, in fact, really nice! A large high pressure system was dominating the area and produced clear skies and fine weather for Simons 9000 ft flight across the mountains and glaciers of Denmark's Greenland.

The trip came to its grand conclusion following flights across Iceland, the Faeroes Islands, Scotland and England. Simon completed the trip in 17 days, 14 hours, 2 minutes and 27 seconds (one day and one leg ahead of the original schedule), that's seven days faster than Ron Bower's 1994 flight.

Can the record be broken? Well, records are set to be broken, but this one... it's going to be here for a while. Simon was very lucky with the weather (although it felt far from it), we both had the experience from the first trip and the helicopter never missed a beat. To better this a pilot would have to take extraordinary steps in risk, for if he fell just one leg behind, from the slightest logistic hold up, the smallest of technical problems or experienced the likely and very devastating weather conditions then the door would close.

It was a pleasure and an intensely steep curve of learning, emotion and endurance to be involved with this flight and following ratification from the Helicopter Club of Great Britain, FAI, and Guinness book, we will have set the new World Speed Record!

Darren Smith of Hayward Aviation congratulating Simon on the completion of his journey.