David Sykes presenting President George Abela with a copy of his book, A Wing and a Chair, yesterday. Photo: Matthew MirabelliA paraplegic explorer who flew a flimsy, one-man aircraft from England to Australia described Malta as “a great pit stop” along his perilous journey.
David Sykes, who lost the use of his legs after a motorcycle accident in 1994, flew for four months across 18 countries, battling savage electrical storms and freezing temperatures in his slender Microlight aircraft.
The flight, which marked the 80th anniversary of Amy Johnson’s 1930 solo flight to Australia, was originally expected to take between six and eight weeks. But Mr Sykes, 44, said he suffered a few hitches along the way.
“It definitely wasn’t all plain sailing. It was a proper adventure,” he said during a courtesy visit to President George Abela yesterday.
Mr Sykes’ story is the stuff of literary adventure, which became abundantly clear as he captivated listeners at San Anton Palace yesterday.
“I experienced some death-defying moments, giant sandstorms in Saudi Arabia, icy fog above uncharted jungle, hoping my extra fuel tank would get me across shark-infested waters.
It got to the point where I wasn’t scared any more, it was just about trying to survive
“I was even threatened with being shot down while crossing Iran,” to which President Abela jokingly replied, “I had a bumpy flight to Sydney once too.”
Mr Sykes took up Microlighting in 2000 after his girlfriend warned him of the dangers of his former hobby, parachuting.
“My girlfriend threatened to leave me if I parachuted again, she found it too dangerous – her hobby is stitching. Microlighting liberates me, it’s like riding a motorcycle in the sky,” Mr Sykes said.
His message: “I am in a wheelchair but I am not disabled,” was met with applause from President Abela, who echoed the need for increased emphasis on mobility as he leafed through Mr Sykes’ book A Wing and a Chair, Soloflight to Oz. The book chronicles the 257-hour trip.
The amateur pilot said the most unnerving part of his adventure was an electrical storm over Burma, which short-fused his equipment and forced him to fly for several hours without any cockpit equipment.
“There was a big flash and the aircraft shuddered with a lightning strike at the side of me and it blew all the fuses out on the instruments. It got to the point where I wasn’t scared any more, it was just about trying to survive it all,” Mr Sykes said.
He was also grounded in Thailand for three weeks as a result of a torrential downpour during the monsoon season.
“I flew through rain so heavy that my pod started filling up with water, I had to take off my visor just to see,” he said.
Mr Sykes said he thought his time was up when he crash landed in Pakistan after a gust of wind blew his lightweight craft into a ditch. “It took 20 airport staff to save me,” Mr Sykes said, chuckling heartily as he recalled the anxious look on one of his rescuers’ faces.
In remote Kupang, Timor, a wheel was ripped off his craft trapping his foot, after violent winds blew him off a runway.
The journey was made all the more remarkable as it followed the death of a fellow Microlight pilot, whose plane crashed during a similar England-to-Australia charity journey in 2010.
Fellow Microlight pilot and one of Mr Sykes’ closest friends, Mike Poole, said he often stayed up until the early hours to follow Mr Sykes’s progress on a satellite tracker, which provided real time updates of Mr Sykes’ location on his website: www.soloflightglobal.com.
“I just caught the Sydney Bankstown controller saying: ‘Congratulations, wheely Dave,’ and telling him to follow the vehicle with the flashing light, so I knew that he was finally safely down,” Mr Poole said.
Mr Sykes, known affectionately as ‘Spokes’, is not resting on his laurels and has since been involved in several mobility awareness campaigns, receiving the Charity Fundraiser Of The Year award in 2012.
He is now planning to fly around the world to raise funds for several initiatives and is working on finding sponsorships to support his cause.
“I believe I can do it. It will be another amazing adventure,” he said.