Blind adventurer Miles Hilton-Barber completed a 13,500-mile flight from London, England to Sydney, Australia on Monday. Hilton-Barber piloted an open-cockpit microlight aircraft, accompanied by co-pilot Storm Smith. The 57-year-old Hilton-Barber has been blind for nearly 25 years.

The adventurers encountered snowstorms, sub-freezing temperatures, and torrential rains during the 54-day journey. The tiny plane has a small windshield, but offers no other protection from the elements. Each day usually included two four-hour flights at a speed of about 70 knots (80 mph).

Hilton-Barber has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa—at 19,340 feet above sea level, the highest point in Africa. He has run the Badwater Ultramarathon across California’s Death Valley—a scorching summertime grind of 135 miles from 282-feet-below-sea-level Badwater to 8,360-feet-above-sea-level Whitney Portal. He has participated as a scuba diver in explorations of shipwrecks in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. 

Hilton-Barber’s aircraft, a Mainair Quick GT450, is equipped with revolutionary speech-output technology, allowing him to monitor flight instruments and navigate the aircraft. Looking like a large tricycle hanging beneath the wing of a hang-glider, the aircraft is powered by a 100-horsepower four-stroke engine.  

One purpose of the record-setting flight is to raise money for Seeing is Believing, a charity sponsored by British-based Standard Chartered Bank. The organization hopes to gain $2 million from the fund-raising effort, and has the aim of restoring the sight of 28,000 blind people around the world.

For more information, visit:
http://www.seeingisbelieving.org.uk/microlightadventure/about-miles.asp and http://www.mileshilton-barber.com/blog/ .