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A blog with daily news and photographs will be available here. Please come back soon and check for updates on Jay & Dave's progress.

After a good nights rest, the team got up bright and breezy ready for their lift back to the airfield with Lucas to whom they have expressed their greatest gratitude for making them feel so welcome.

Realising they would need to get a move on, their takeoff was shortly before 09H00 continental time(BST+1). With a warm morning and a trailing wind, they knew their biggest stumbling block would be daylight. On climbing over mountains just over 8200 feet high, they descended into lower land but soon realised they were still climbing at 1000 feet per minute with the engine on idle, not violent thermals, just strong gentle ones. They headed for the onroute airfield to refuel at Corridonia only to find nobody at the airfield. Taking off within 10 minutes, little time was wasted.

Making good progress, taking advantage of the tailwind component, the clouds started building and it wasn't long before they knew a large thunderstorm was building directly in their path to the south east. They had planned to land at L'Aquila for a fuel stop which fortunately was less than 20 miles ahead, only just making in on the ground as the heavens burst. While evacuating the runway, they were instructed to taxi towards a hangar which would provide cover from the winds, only to find the hangar opening and they were guided inside.

It was here that they met Sandro of Aero Service Maintenance. Sandro said the thunderstorms are likely to continue for an hour atleast and he would be happy to take them into town for a bite to eat should they choose. After refueling, Sandro who is married with 2 children(3 & 6 year olds) took them to a local restaurant where they were fed with fantastic food, Sandro insisted on settling the bill. It never ceases to amaze me how aviators the world around not only go out their way to assist fellow aviators, but are also able to go the extra mile to make strangers feel extremely welcome, irrespective of what they fly.

Sandro was saying that in Italy, you can land at any airfield/airport in a microlight with the exception of those with ATZ's as marked on an aviation chart. Operating from L'Aquila - Preturo airport, he performs maintenance on all aircraft under 5000kg and is JAR-145 certified.

He does have the occasional Englishman bringing their Seneca's over for a CofA every now and then, though this is not where he learned his near perfect English, just as well because Jay isn't too conversant in Italian except when he speak with his hands.

Dave has insisted we plug Sandro's aircraft business, if his aircraft servicing skills match his hospitality skills, he must be a winner. He can be contacted as below:

Aero Service S.R.L.
Aeroporto de Preturo
L'Aquila
67010 Italy

Tel : 39 0862 463 010
Fax : 39 0862 463 647
Email : aeroservice@tiscali.it

Approval No : RAI-233

Back at the airfield, they sat it out waiting for the weather to clear and by 16H00, it was evident they were going to be stuck there after only 200 miles flown this morning.

After the last few days of slower than planned progress and then todays thunderstorms, they are silently admitting it may no longer be possible to make it to Cyprus in 6 days in order to beat Brian Milton's records of 7 days.

They are naturally going to continue as they would have anyway for many reasons:

1. The experience of flying so freely in their open cockpit aircraft over such beautiful a landscape cannot be repeated at any opportunity,
2. They don't fancy having to pack the aircraft in a container as they had to a few years ago on their first attempt besides, a serviceable aircraft is meant to be flown, not containered to a destination and finally, but most importantly,
3. The publicity is good for their charities with the opportunity for the public to keep reading about their flight and continue donating more for the children who will benefit from their efforts.

Have they failed? Certainly not, their achievements are many fold.

I personally don't know of many 53 & 70 year olds flying across Europe and beyond, in an open cockpit aircraft, in conditions that would test the skills of some much younger. I say well done and good luck for the remainder of the journey.

And so they will depart L'Aquila tomorrow morning in the direction of Lecce on the south eastern tip of Italy before the 70 mile hop to Greece. Who knows what will unfold; we will fortunately find out soon.

On landing at Lecce, their departure point for Greece, Jay & Dave almost thought they must have been hallucinating when reminiscing about the hassles they experienced on their last attempt at getting to Cyprus, until they stopped their engine.

Within minutes they were surrounded by the Polizei embalmed with firearms of all sorts, who started checking out the aircraft from top to bottom, looking for anything illegal. It appeared their main interest were illegal firearms and drugs; the southern tip of Italy is an age-old smugglers route.

The local Aero Club are under strict instructions to call the police if any foreign registered aircraft lands at Lecce. There are many airfields and airports(civilian and military) near Lecce thus for clarification, they landed at the airfield about 3.5 miles east of town(Google Earth view).

Once the aircraft and themselves were checked out, all was back to the normal, friendly Italian ways were restored in the manner they have come to expect during this trip. They were filling up their XT-912 and were getting ready to head for town in search of a hotel, a bit of dinner and a farewell glass of wine as this report was delivered(which means this report was delivered over more than one telephone call).

The local flying folk told them of two German microlight pilots who flew into Corfu from Italy last year and had their aircraft confiscated which naturally has them a bit concerned. Frantic attempts are currently underway to establish contact with ATC at Corfu International Airport to establish if their flightplan will be approved for a flight in the morning, the result of which we find out in the next hour or two.

The team have managed to get hold of Corfu International Airport tower who have agreed to accept them on a flight plan. They will be contacting Brindisi airport who will file the flight plan on their behalf giving sufficient notice such that the Polizei can make their required visit to ensure no unauthorized activites or exports are taking place when leaving Italy.

They aren't expecting a swift departure in the morning.

On the homefront, Jay says he's been keeping Dave out of mischief in the evenings while Dave says he took a compromising photo of Jay last night; - I'm sure we'll be able to source that photo and publish it here at the end of the trip. Let's hope we get access to Dave's memory card.

Google Earth view of finals Lecce.

The team are ready for departure. All flights in Greece on foreign registered aircraft must be on a flightplan with their major problem being airfields they can land at. Their initial plans are to see how far they get and take it one step at a time. It is likely all flights across Greece will be to larger, international airports.

They have arrived at Corfu International in the land of Oyzo and tsaziki after a 2 hour flight. A slight headwind component was experienced with no significant weather during the trip. They were relieved not to have to orbit as they had last time round and were granted a straight in on finals. Once on the ground they were offered fuel which they accepted. A 25000 liter fuel bowser arrived; "25 liters please" said Dave.

The only airfield they have found, and which is willing to accept them along their intended track is 5 hours away, an unlikely target for today considering daylight hours are limited for the duration. Also, because Greece doesn't recognise microlights, they will have to file a flightplan for all flights. I think they are trying to avoid standing on any toes when it comes to aviation(remember the plane-spotters a few years ago in Greece).

They will find a place to stay over tonight near the airport and get an early start. Jay is pretty tired as he has been up since 04H00 this morning(Italy time, also, they are now 2-hours ahead of England).

The day of the optimist and the pessimist.

While planning their next track, Jay established from the tower at Corfu that it is possible to land at Megara airport(near Athens) which is a military airport, get fuel though it isn't possible to stay overnight. Dave decided that, being given contact details for Megara, he would rather contact them directly to establish information. He's been told that they are allowed to land at Megaral, refuel and even stay over should they choose however, Jay is a bit concerned he was speaking to a toilet cleaner rather than someone with authority.

They've decided they'll be taking off early and heading for Megara in the hope that things work out alright. A quick turnaround is planned at Megara as they'd ideally like to make it to Mykonos where they will overnight again.

When landing this morning, they were requested to follow a marshall car to the designated parking area for the evening, quite a novelty, but then it should be at Euro38.00 for the privilege.

They are staying in a small hotel in Kerkyra, less than a mile from the airport. It's been quite hot and humid though they've chosen to rather have a shower than make use of the clean, blue swimming pool at the hotel to cool off.

The team have arrived at Megara, fueled up and were about to depart for Mykonos when they managed to get a copy of the current METAR which was showing 30 knot winds at Mykonos. Even though they're pretty experienced with thousands of hours between them, their better judgment convinced them to ground themselves rather than taking a chance and risking the aircraft and themselves.

They will stay over in Athens this evening near the airport. The local receptionist has agreed to download a few photo's and e-mail them to us which will be nice to see.

Bets are on who has shaved the least over the past 6 days; Jay is odds-on to win this one.

Jay mentioned for once that the Airborne XT is performing extremely well, the first he has mentioned about the aircraft over the last few days, I guess the lack of, or absence of bad news never makes the news in reality. The earlier heavy fuel consumption has also settled down which was to be expected considering the engine was literally brand new when leaving England a few days ago.

I previously mentioned that Dave & Jay were having photo's e-mailed by a 'receptionist' through to central headquarters(that's sounds better than the mobile office) however, this was absolute misinformation; - the truth is that the story was picked up by Natalie and Ilias from the Greek GA magazine who made their way to Megara to take a few photo's and perform an interview with the team. More than just seeking an interview, they are also the teams godsend in that they've arranged an overnight stay at Megara where the Airborne XT-912 is properly tied down in the gale force winds.

We all remember last evenings optimist vs. pessimist issue, well, this is now clarified in that both Jay & Dave received correct information but, relating to two different authorities. Megara is owned by the Greek military though the local aero club also operates from the same airfield. With 2 weeks notice it is possible to overnight; they've fortunately been granted the same allowance on 2-hours notice.

Not only that, but it is also only possible to exit Greek airspace on a flightplan from a customs airfield unless 2 weeks notice is given which posed a problem for their stopover and refueling at Kastelorizo(off the Turkish Coast; final stop before proceeding on the last leg to Paphos). The great Natalie & Ilias have also arranged an exemption to allow them flight clearance to proceed to Kastelorizo in order to complete their voyage.

A big thanks goes to these fellow aviators, journalists and more(Natalie holds a CPL and is also studying Architecture).

Ilias(Elliott for us English), thanks for the photo's which visitors to this website can find below.

Photo's below of refueling at Megara(Google Earth view).

You may notice the underwing sponsor logo's have been removed, this is because they started unfixing themselves during yesterdays sea crossing of the Adriatic to Corfu, threatening to go through the propeller.

Please visit the sponsors webpage by clicking here to ensure they get their fair share of well appreciated, and paid for coverage.

Also, please don't forget to donate to the great charitable causes Jay & David are raising funds for. Simply follow the 'Make a Donation' button on the top of this blog webpage to donate should wish(if you haven't already).

The team are about to fall asleep as you are reading this(please check time of this report which is BST)

They have had a welcoming day and have been well cared for(that's a promise for Sue as well).

Nataly Anemodoura(Natalia is the Greek spelling so we got it wrong on more than one occasion). Their magazine is named “Remove Before Flight” as can be seen from the piccy above(if you can't read it, you shouldn't be flying; please refer to your GP) ;-)). Further details can be found on their website at www.11aviation.com. It covers everything about Civil and Sports Aviation in Greece and Cyprus. (still in Greek language only unfortunately but I don't think translators will be difficult to find judging by the friendliness of the Greek folk the team have met). It has 116 pages, 4 posters and usually an aviation DVD (their own production). Contact them directly on flight@11aviation.com.

For those with access to the Cypriot weekly English news 'Cyprus Weekly', a full report will be published tomorrow(Friday) courtesy of Hugh Atkinson who is a regular writer.

For those without access to a print copy, we may be able to get a snippet of the report on this blog in the morning.

I see news gets around... The true blue Aussie manufacturers of the Airborne XT-912, Airborne Australia, are having a whale of a time and rightly so, 2 old gaffers doing the med in an XT-912 must mean a reliable & capable aircraft. See what they source from the web at http://www.airborne.com.au/pages/home_n.cfm. Once again, thanks to Graham of Airborne Australia in the UK.

The team awoke with the sparrows to file their flightplan to Mykonos with Rhodes as an alternative and were airborne(excuse the pun) by 09H00 local time(07H00 UK time). On nearing Mykonos, they called a diversion to their alternative and proceeded to Rhodes and, after 4.5 hours of hopping across a lot of Greek islands, they arrived in circuit at Rhodes airport. They were requested to maintain an altitude of 2000 feet, orbiting 2 miles from the airport on a downwind leg. After proposing an alternative, they were allowed to orbit at 1500 feet on finals while commercial aircraft passed over them. As soon as commercial passenger traffic had cleared, they were given a gap to approach on finals. Minutes later they were on the ground in 30 knot winds trying to keep the wing down. While battling to hold the aircraft down, a Hercules taxied past, fortunately not blowing the trike over.

They have been offered hangarage for this evening but, hoping for an early start, they had to decline as they would then only have access to the hangar after 09H00 in the morning(local time). The XT should however be fine with the wing dropped on the a-frame and properly tied down.

Rather than heading for Kastelorizo and then onto Cyprus, Dave will be flying directly to Paphos tomorrow morning with a midday, early afternoon arrival time expected.

The team are currently at a their hotel about 3 miles from the airport and will take a slow walk into town for a bite to eat.

Dave & Jay are now asleep, getting ready for the longest sea crossing of their trip. They are really looking forward to getting to Paphos and achieving what they set out to do in 2001; just one more hurdle to cross.

They are however apprehensive about meeting the media(tv & print) which will be awaiting, not only friends and family but also the major of Paphos, CAA delegates and fellow flyers.

They initially didn't plan on making this a media event but realised the benefit the media could provide to their charities. They have requested that their thanks go out to all those that supported them, sending messages by e-mail and text messages and also telephonically. A special thanks go to those that assisted them with this trip, especially their in-transit friends who were mentioned in this blog. Thanks to the French, the Italians, the Greeks and also to the Cypriots who have already welcomed them.

A special, personal report in the 'Loop' will be published next issue as reported by Dan Tye, Loop's chief reporter, keep an eye out.

Further, you can contact the team on theteam@england-to-cyprus.co.uk. Well wishes will be published on this website in due course.

While all is silent and the team are sleeping, you have a preview of the news report as apearing in the Cyprus Weekly dated Saturday 16th September 2006 which can be accessed here in MS Word format.

The team have departed Rhodes and are heading directly to Paphos, some 255 miles of sea crossing. They do fortunately have a tail wind which is expected to remain throughout(300 degrees 15 knots).

There will be a media backout until around 16H00 to allow Cyprus press access to Dave & Jay. Once they have a chance to pack the aircraft away, a full report will be available here.

Image showing their track from Rhodes International to Paphos International airports.

After 4.5 hours of flight, Dave & Jay arrived at Paphos Inetrnational airport at just before midday(Cyprus time) to complete their journey. They were welcomed by the press, performing radio and television interviews.

A big congratulations goes to the team who have finally laid their demons of 5 years ago to rest.

The aircraft has now been derigged and hangared for the evening and they will be relaxing for the next day or so after which Jay will return to Plaistows Farm where his students are anxiously waiting his return so that they can continue their training. Hopefully this trip will spur future pilots on to travel great distances, while doing good for the community.

Dave will remain in Paphos where he lives with Sue.

The Airborne XT-912 will take its place next to Davids first XT-912 where it will live to fly another day.

While not a record, the XT-912 with the two pilots(average age 61.5), completed the 2480 mile route in 42-hour of flying over 8.5 days.

A final request goes to all with a few pennies, cents or rupees spare to remember to