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After completing the eastbound segment of his solo flight on a philanthropic mission, our very own Callum Wallace arrived in Australia late last week.
He kicked off the flight on his single-engine plane a few weeks ago from Burlington Airpark to build awareness for affordable housing and raise $1 million for Home Suite Hope (HSH), an Oakville charity.
The idea of Flight for Hope to support HSH’s campaign for building affordable housing for homeless mothers has garnered attention from across continents since its announcement last year.
On this trip, the 28-year-old pilot will fly for ten weeks with 75 stops across 26 countries. With the initial touchdowns at Quebec and Newfoundland after kicking off the journey, Wallace stopped at Greenland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales, Spain and Italy. Upon reaching Greece, he had to wait for a few days to get the front oil seal replaced in the aircraft.
Wallace’s itinerary in Asia started with Egypt early this month and continued through UAE, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia.
This was the first time Wallace flew into Asia himself. “From Nagpur (India) through to Indonesia is considered the intertropical convergence zone, which means lots of weather activity happens there always. I was lucky to have good weather for the most part except for going into Nagpur.”
Since the single-engine aircraft does not have onboard weather abilities like airlines or access to check the weather online, flying to India was challenging for Wallace. He is grateful to the aviation enthusiast from Mississauga who “was tracking me LIVE and calling me on my satellite phone to guide the direction to go!”
“Keep in mind this is the middle of the night for everyone in the Toronto time zone. Without his help, who knows how that flight would have gone,” he added.
Though the original route included New Zealand, New Caledonia replaces it now due to time and weather considerations. The remaining countries to be visited are Fiji, American Samoa, Kiribati (Christmas Island) and Hawaii (USA).