Aust. solo pilot off again

Press, 27 September 1982, Page 8

Aust. solo pilot off again

NZPA-Reuter Singapore Australian adventurer, Dick Smith, attempting the first solo helicopter flight round the world, left Singapore Yor Jakarta yesterday with an overhanging cloud of ash and. smoke in his flight path. "■ ; ■ He earlier expressed doubts whether he could keep to his schedule because the thick haze, believed to be volcanic ash from Mount Galunggung in West Java

and smoke from forest fires i in Indonesian Kalimantan i (Borneo), had reduced visibil- 1 ity to a dangerous level. 1 But representatives of his 1 sponsors said that the haze had lifted to allow Mr Smith i to take off on time in his Bell Jetranger helicopter for the 960 km flight to Jakarta. But they said that his flight from Jakarta to Den-. pasar, capital of the holiday island of Bali, could be hazardous if the Galunggung volcano went into fresh erup-

tions. Mr Smith, aged 38. a millionaire businessman from' Sydney, arrived in Singapore two days ago after flying the 35,000 km from .Fort Worth, Texas, in a total of 51 days. On the way, he had two narrow escapes — when he was shot at by unidentified trawlers near Greenland, and when, his helicopter nearly overturned on a lonely Burmese beach in torrential rains.