Belgian-British 19-year-old girl departs from Kortrijk for a record-setting trip around the aircraft world in an ultralight

[Passenger]

19-year old Belgian-British Zara Rutherford leaves for a world record setting 52.000 kms round-the-world-trip in her Shark Ultralight.

Departure from Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport KJK/EBKT at 10h30 local time.

Live coverage in this article:
https://www.hln.be/sint-genesius-rode/z ... ~ac7e33e7/

[Passenger]

19-year old Belgian-British Zara Rutherford leaves for a world record setting 52.000 kms round-the-world-trip in her Shark Ultralight.

Departure from Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport KJK/EBKT at 10h30 local time.

Live coverage in this article:
https://www.hln.be/sint-genesius-rode/z ... ~ac7e33e7/

Shark - Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/shark.aero/

Support from Virgin:
https://www.virgin.com/branson-family/h ... -the-world

[Passenger]

19-year old Belgian-British Zara Rutherford leaves for a world record setting 52.000 kms round-the-world-trip in her Shark Ultralight.

Departure from Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport KJK/EBKT at 10h30 local time.

Live coverage in this article:
https://www.hln.be/sint-genesius-rode/z ... ~ac7e33e7/

Shark - Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/shark.aero/

Support from Virgin:
https://www.virgin.com/branson-family/h ... -the-world

Best website:
https://flyzolo.com/

[Passenger]

19-year old Belgian-British Zara Rutherford leaves for a world record setting 52.000 kms round-the-world-trip in her Shark Ultralight.

Departure from Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport KJK/EBKT at 10h30 local time.

Live coverage in this article:
https://www.hln.be/sint-genesius-rode/z ... ~ac7e33e7/

Shark - Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/shark.aero/

Support from Virgin:
https://www.virgin.com/branson-family/h ... -the-world

Best website:
https://flyzolo.com/

And airborne: the youngest female pilot ever for a solo world tour:
https://www.flightradar24.com/OMS443/28d302ca

[Stij]

Godspeed!!!

[sn26567]

19-year old Belgian-British Zara Rutherford leaves for a world record setting 52.000 kms round-the-world-trip in her Shark Ultralight.

Departure from Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport KJK/EBKT at 10h30 local time.

Live coverage in this article:
https://www.hln.be/sint-genesius-rode/z ... ~ac7e33e7/

Shark - Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/shark.aero/

Support from Virgin:
https://www.virgin.com/branson-family/h ... -the-world

Don't forget our early coverage: https://www.aviation24.be/manufacturers ... ld-record/

[Lux_avi]

Good luck to her.

I hope she learned from her daddy's fatal mistake(s);
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-shropshire-51851249

[sn26567]

The departure from KJK:

https://fb.watch/7sDtrDJ4cC/

[Sam Rutherford]

She's just landed in Seoul, for anyone following...

[sn26567]

She's just landed in Seoul, for anyone following...

Great! Thus she finally managed to escape the Russian cold bad weather!

[DIBO]

Wanted to share her request (with update: pilot has been identified), but it's also a great story:

https://www.facebook.com/FlyZolo/posts/234002642204164 :

Flyzolo Team Update - APPEAL FOR HELP TO FIND A PILOT!

On her World Record Attempt, Zara landed in #SouthKorea today after a more than 6 hour long flight over the Sea of Japan. Just imagine. Flying this amount of time, all on your own, in a tiny single-engined plane over cold sea water, with no land in sight...

Since radio transmissions involve a transmitting and a receiving antenna, to function, they need to be what is called "in line of sight". Being at only 7000 feet (+-2300m) and far away from any land mass - her radio's did not connect with any controllers for a long while because the curvature of the Earth over such long distances gets in the way...

About half-way into her #flight and as soon as Zara heard a commercial airliner communicate overhead, she asked the crew for assistance in "relaying" her message to the air controllers and finding the appropriate frequencies she needed. The airliner helping her on the 11th of December was flight KLM 868 and it was around 23H50 Zulu time (GMT). The pilot was incredibly #kind and #helpful to her, without even knowing who she was and what she was doing there.

APPEAL! APPEAL! APPEAL! APPEAL! APPEAL! APPEAL! APPEAL!

Can you please forward this message to anyone able to help find this good samaritan - a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines pilot - and bring us in contact with him so we can say a proper thank you?

[sn26567]

That pilot should not be difficult to find, knowing his flight number KL868 (Osaka-Amsterdam) and the date (11 Dec). The aircraft was a Boeing 777-200 registered PH-BQD.

[Poiu]

Wanted to share her request (with update: pilot has been identified), but it's also a great story...

Relays are common in remote areas, nothing special about it, it’s just colleagues helping each other.

[DIBO]

Relays are common in remote areas, nothing special about it, it’s just colleagues helping each other.

Well, in remote area with "less-than-optimal" ATControl they even do interpilot ATCoordination themselves. And if they get bored, it's chicken sounds on guard by some idiots. Yeah I know.
But a 19-year old solo in the small cockpit of an ultralight, doing hours on a row over water half-a-world away from home, getting some help from a "big multicrew office" high above and maybe even doing some chit-chatting in dutch, is not really boring business as usual....

[Auka]

Some pic from a Friend at GMP in south Korea (copyright Junha Park)

I also have the recording of the ATC when she arrives at GMP but the files is bigger than 2 mb

i'll try to post it

[Passenger]

Next Monday (17th Jan 2022) she will be back home: last trip of her journey will be QEF-KJK EDFE-EBKT Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport to Kortrijk Wevelgem Airport.

ETA Monday is 10h30 local, with live stream on FB and Youtube as from 10h.

https://flyzolo.com/route/

[luchtzak]

Awaiting her arrival

[Passenger]

Awaiting her arrival

Too much fog at Frankfurt today, thus no stopover there today. Hence a new routing and new timing for Monday:
https://flyzolo.com/route/

[icymichel]

Arrival in EBKT delayed until tomorrow due to weather conditions in LKPR and en route.
She is now at a little airport Benesov 40 Km south of Prague

TAF: LKPR 170500Z 1706/1812 26018KT 9999 BKN025 BECMG 1706/1709 -RA BKN014 TEMPO 1706/1717 28020G32KT PROB30 TEMPO 1709/1716 29022G42KT BECMG 1711/1714 6000 RASN BKN007 TEMPO 1714/1718 1200 SHRASN BKN002 BECMG 1717/1719 31010KT CAVOK

Zara is flying under VFR flight rules with her Shark Ultralight.

[Luke777]

It is fantastic what Zara did, but i wonder how the risk of bad weather was solved ? i saw legs of +6 hours over oceans, some legs at 10000 ft over mountains; pilots here are aware that WX conditions can change very rapidly, clouds can come in very quick, CBs can build, VFR visability can change to almost zero in 1H... the danger factor is very high in my opnion, no ?