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SCMP Reporter

TWO microlight pilots aiming to go 'Around the World in 80 Days' are seeking permission to land at Kai Tak in an effort to recreate the fictional voyage 125 years later.

 Britons Brian Milton, 55, and co-pilot Keith Reynolds, 45, say Hong Kong is a must stop on their romantic adventure to retrace the route taken by Phileas Fogg and his manservant, Passepartout.

 Milton, a financial journalist, said: 'We plan to be in Hong Kong 31 days after we set out.

 'Our trip got a very enthusiastic response from the Chinese air attache at the embassy in London.

 'From our point of view Hong Kong is a must-stop place because Phileas Fogg stopped there.'  In Jules Verne's classic tale, some key scenes take place in Hong Kong, including Passepartout's visit to an opium den.

 'Docks, hospitals, wharves, a Gothic cathedral, a government house, macadamised streets, give to Hong Kong the appearance of a town in Kent or Surrey transferred by some strange magic to the antipodes,' the author wrote in 1873.

 Fogg and Passepartout arrived by steamer from Bombay and left by boat for Shanghai in a rush to catch a boat across the Pacific.

 Timing is just as crucial for the modern-day adventurers as small aircraft are only permitted to land at Kai Tak between 7 am and 8 am in order to avoid approaching amid the rapid succession of jumbo jet landings and take-offs.

 The 38,000-kilometre journey will be done in a craft with a 1,200 cc engine. The fuel tank holds just 100 litres of unleaded fuel.

 It cruises at around 96 km/h and can take off in 50 metres. The pilots steer by moving their body weight.

 Milton said they were in the process of seeking permission from all the aviation authorities in the 25 countries whose airspace they will cross during the 38,881-km journey.

 They leave London at the end of March and aim to cross Saudi Arabia, following a pipeline to avoid straying into Iraq.

 They will endure extreme cold during a hazardous final leg, flying at 3,952 metres over the Greenland ice sheet and the North Atlantic to Iceland before returning to Britain.

 A Civil Aviation Department spokesman said they were waiting for the pilots' application.

 Eight American pilots who set the round-the-world record for flying in an open cockpit, single-engined aircraft in 1924, which has still not been broken, also stopped in Hong Kong.

 Milton, who holds the record for the longest and fastest microlight flight - from London to Sydney in 59 days - said his new attempt was one of the few challenges left in aviation.

 'It is a very human and romantic adventure,' he said. 'It is an aesthetic experience to fly with an open cockpit, because that is the way the birds fly,' Milton said.

 The pilots' progress can be followed via daily updates on the Internet at: www.gtglobalflyer.org 



'Phileas Fogg' pair set sights on Kai Tak