"Michael 182"
This may well be old news to a lot of you, since it occurred in August,
but
it was new to me, and a pretty cool accomplishment. On page 34 of this
month's Flying Mag there is a blurb about a model airplane named "Spirit
of
Butts Farm" built by Maynard Hill that flew from Cape Spear to Ireland.
The
balsa wood plane weighed 11 lbs and had a 6.5 foot wingspan. It flew 1888
miles in 38 hours, 23 minutes so if I can calculate it maintained a
groundspeed of about 49 MPH at a cruising altitude of 500 ft. It had an
onboard GPS and microprocessors for navigation. It burned 5.5 pounds of
fuel
for the entire flight.

What an amazing feat for a hobbyist (albeit an unusually accomplished
one).

Thanks. I had heard that Mr. Hill was attempting it but didn't know he made
it. I've been reading about his exploits since the 60s. Pretty amazing
guy - wish I had a chance to meet him.

The feat is perhaps more astounding than some of the other events planned
for the Centennial of flight.