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Around the States in 40 days Michael Combs is a man who thought he would never be able to get a pilot’s licence, but here has just completed a 28,000 mile journey visiting all 50 States in 40 days
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CIHAEL COMBs saw his dream of getting a PPL snatched away by a heart problem. But after getting an LSA licence, he set out to set a world record for visiting all mainland US States in the class, in a Remos. Q| Congratulations on breaking the time over distance world record, how does it feel? A| Amazing! There’s quite a sense of accomplishment with this entire Flight for the Human Spirit project. For some reason when it’s an official world record there’s a deep sense of satisfaction. Q| You’ve only recently learnt to fly after having a passion for it for years. How did it eventually come about? A| From childhood I always knew that some day I would fly. But I kept putting it off. making excuses such as it’s too expensive. But in August of 2003 my heart stopped, twice! It took 18 months to fully recover. About four months after it happened I realised that I was never going to fly, and I’d always promised myself that I was going to live my life without any regrets. And that’s how it all began – I started to live my life with more purpose and stopped making excuses. I got my wings in October 2009 and two weeks later I
was already flying from Dallas to Tampa, Florida. Q| How did you get round the licence issue? A| The Sports Pilot Licence is really based on the US driver’s licence and on theory all pilots need to follow every time they get into the cockpit. For example, if you’re too tired, ill, or on medication, you shouldn’t be flying. It’s up to each pilot to certify ourselves. So if you are well enough to drive, then with the proper training and licensing requirements you can fly a Light Sport Aircraft. At the time I was not able to pass the physical, but now my condition has improved I don’t think I would have any problem passing. But I decided to stay with the Sports Pilot Licence because I really wanted to show people what you can do with it. It’s been out for seven years now but there are a lot of misconceptions, such as not being able to fly more than 250 miles from your own base, or to major airports – people feel there are limitations, but I’m proving them wrong everyday I fly.
Q| How did it get to the next stage? It must’ve taken a huge amount of planning to complete. A| It took well over a year to plan the entire route. Keep in mind that I’ve now flown 28,000 miles and just landed at my 171st different airfield. So before I even took off I had planned each one of the waypoints. So every turn, every part of the route, had already been planned.
Q| How did the idea for the trip come about? A| It was just one of those thoughts whilst I was recovering that wouldn’t go away. I just kept thinking that I needed to fly an aircraft to fly to all 50 States. I just knew I had to do it.
Q| So how many flying hours do you have in your log book now? A| I was just looking at that yesterday. I now have 482 hours, so I’m nearly at the 500 mark. Before I started the trip I had around 145 hours. It keeps rising.
54 LOOP august 2011 www.loop.aero
Combs (right) is heping inspire millions at shows and events
Q| What is Flight for the Human Spirit? A| We want to reach 50million people with the message it’s never too late to follow your dreams – whatever they are. With us flying it will translate to people that want to fly, but we’ve reached out to other people who with other interests. We just want people to follow their dreams. As a consequence we’ve had people open up restaurants, a 79-year-old gentleman in Colorado bought a brand new Harley and rode it to the West Coast and back, another man finally proposed to a lady he’d loved for years. It’s amazing what has come out of this project and this little plane.
Q| What was the Remos GX like to fly? A| Amazingly easy. The biggest thing to get used to is flying in wind. Flying that much we ran into all kinds of weather, but the winds were the biggest challenge. It’s an amazing aircraft to fly. and very maintenance free. Q| So what is the official record you have? A| A time over distance world record, averaging 106.32mph! The last record set by anyone flying out of Fort Worth [Michael’s start point] was Steve Fossett. And no record had ever been set in Branson, Missouri, our finish point, so we really now feel part of aviation history. www.flighths.com