Youngest woman around the world (Zara Rutherford)

Paul Bertorelli always writes good articles but I was surprised by how honest and frank the owner of Shark was.

Myself and a couple of friends visited the Shark factory this week, I had a sit in Zara’s plane:

Besides the points raised in the article, they said that they haven’t actually had a single sale linked to the RTW flight. It was certainly a risk for them to do it the one time and doing it again, with no discernible benefit, doesn’t make a great deal of sense.

I also don’t quite understand why the family would publicise their flight, give dates etc… without actually having a plane confirmed.

The Shark is cool though, they kindly took the 3 of us flying. The side stick would take some getting used to and the Rotax in the demo aircraft was more rattly than I’m used to, but the handling was great. I can do a write-up if anyone is interested.

I’m interested

IO390 wrote:

I also don’t quite understand why the family would publicise their flight, give dates etc… without actually having a plane confirmed.

As far as I remember the family runs a flight school and therefore has several airplanes available. Or is there a general rule that such flights must only be done in airplanes that don’t belong to you and are provided by the owner for free?

Malibuflyer wrote:

As far as I remember the family runs a flight school and therefore has several airplanes available. Or is there a general rule that such flights must only be done in airplanes that don’t belong to you and are provided by the owner for free?

It looks like he’s now doing the RTW flight, in a Shark but a Shark that isn’t owned by Shark :)

It seems that the publicised RTW flights are the ones reliant on sponsorship, and I guess that will generally involve loan of an aircraft. Those who just want to fly around the world for the fun of it, as opposed to instagram likes, (such as @loco) just go and do it self-funded then maybe write one forum post about it.

Those who just want to fly around the world for the fun of it, as opposed to instagram likes, (such as @loco) just go and do it self-funded then maybe write one forum post about it.

Or even a book, which probably will complement my collection. I will certainly go RTW in my next life, dream travel restricted for the moment

I think perhaps as people grow older the whole purpose of flying RTW changes from a “competitive” and super exciting endeavor to a more “relax and see the world in comfort” journey. Youth go on interrail. It’s fun and exciting. After a certain age interrail doesn’t look all that compelling compared with a relaxed and highly organized “all inclusive” trip on first class on the orient express or similar

I don’t think we should dismiss the youths urge for competition and excitement, and given the opportunity, they will take it no matter what other “grown ups” say. On the other hand, if flying solo RTW is a good arena for young pilots to compete and have fun, is another matter. When the whole competitive purpose is exclusively about being the youngest, then it starts to look rather weird as a competition. Competition is about being best or fastest among peers.

Then again, Zara has indeed shown that flying RTW solo in a SEP is something “girls” also can do. She has broken some barriers.

LeSving wrote:

Then again, Zara has indeed shown that flying RTW solo in a SEP is something “girls” also can do. She has broken some barriers.

Did anyone think that it wasn’t something girls could do?

Flying around the world in any sort of aircraft is principally a function of money, organisation, administrative perseverance, more money, and the sheer will to find ways though politically and administratively ‘challenging’ parts of the world. The more limited your aircraft in performance and range, the more the last part becomes a headache since you cannot just bypass any difficult parts.

It has very little to do with flying aeroplanes and even less to do with one’s gender.

Polly Watcher, Wang Zhen, etc. There have been many “girls” before Zara Rutherford who did it. However, it is in the nature of such Instagram-Economy sponsor runs that you first have to make sure everybody understands “it is not believed to be a girl thing” to than heroically smash the image you created yourself.

Competition is great and has often been a huge driver of achievements. But three thoughts in terms of what is discussed here:
- Competition on “youngest” is often a toxic thing as it has the tendency to push children into questionable endeavors.
- RTW-Flying – esp. the type of sponsor/marketing events as discussed here – is not an individual sport but a team sport. Therefore the merit should go to the team and not to the one who happens to sit in the airplane (making a “youngest” category even more pointless)
- As one can tragically see, RTW-SEP is heavily driven by politics: Not so many years ago, it has been by order of magnitude more difficult, as China and Russia have basically closed therefore leaving only routes with very long pacific legs open. Today it is at least temporarily the same – therefore you could have been the best pilot – but in the wrong times you had no chance.

Graham wrote:

Did anyone think that it wasn’t something girls could do?

It’s now an undisputable fact, not something for anyone to discuss or think or believe (or not believe) I think very few thought a girl couldn’t do it. Women have been pilots in all kinds of aviation for over 100 years (I think).