Posted on Tuesday 06 March 2012

The Flight4Life expedition is making good progress in the pursuit to cover the 1000km and break the Guinness World Record for longest continuous flight by paramotor. While Mark Jennings-Bates has been grounded for a few days following propeller damage, fellow pilot Glenn Derouin has been hampered by severe and unnatural weather.

鈥淔or the past two and half years we have done an incredible amount of research and planning for the trip鈥� comments expedition leader Jennings-Bates. 鈥淚 remember one conversation where I said to Glenn this time last year, that with all the flooding in Queensland which a year ago was a one in one hundred year event, there is no way it could happen two years in a row!鈥�

Those words have now come back to haunt the team as they fly in weather conditions that Australia has never seen. Currently, every road leading through southern New South Wales is closed and the team鈥檚 next significant waypoint Wagga Wagga, a town of 8000 people has today been completely evacuated for fear of the town鈥檚 dyke breaking under peak flood conditions.

As this epic expedition approaches its half way point, the team are encouraged by current radar images that show an overriding high pressure ridge off the coast of South Australia which they are hoping will keep skies blue and winds calm. So far the team has endured the worst weather in east Australia鈥檚 history and the worst single rainfall event since records began in New South Wales. One town has received nearly half a meter of rain in a 7 day period.

While the conditions have been challenging, the Parajet Volution 2 paramotors have been reliable. 鈥淲e expected to have to be really careful with cylinder head temperatures and decided not to add a temp sensor so that the pilots could simply focus on flying if the weather turned a little rough, but in all honesty, we have had absolutely no problems at all with hot engines鈥� said Jennings-Bates, adding 鈥渨e have been really impressed鈥�.

The team still has a long way to fly and of course an difficult transit through the Nullarbor desert which could be the first time anyone has flown a paramotor through this desolate corner of Australia鈥�