So what would someone pack who was taking a single-engine Cessna on a 11,500-mile adventure trip from the top of North America to the bottom of South America?
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V.W.H. Campbell, Post-Gazette
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"We have three forms of emergency equipment," said British adventurer David Hempleman-Adams, summarizing what was stored in the back of a very pink Cessna with a giant "smile" and UK stamped on it. He and co-pilot Lorne White, of Montreal, plan to use the tiny plane as their home base for the next few weeks as they travel the Earth, north to south.
The two adventurers packed blankets, tents and emergency equipment for camping on the tundra in the high Arctic with the polar bears; a water survival kit with life rafts for ocean emergencies; mosquito netting and jungle survival equipment for their trip across the Amazon; maps, cameras -- both digital and film -- paper notebooks, and a computer notebook to transfer information back to England, where it will be posted on the Web site of their sponsor, a British-based internet bank called "smile" and by other media.
And the pair also have a stash of dry-pack food.
"They almost left with my car keys," said Steven E. Phillips, a pilot from Pleasant Hills and a good friend of Hempleman-Adams who loaned his car to the two men while they were in town and has been helping them get ready for the journey.
The men were making their last-minute arrangements yesterday morning when Phillips asked about his car keys.
"Are you taking them to Resolute?" Phillips joked.
White reached in his pocket and produced them.
At about 12:25 p.m. yesterday, Hempleman-Adams and White took off from the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin, where they began the first leg of their adventure.
"See you, mate," Hempleman-Adams said to Phillips, as casually as if he was taking the plane on a little trip up to Lake Erie.
"We will keep track of you on the Web," Phillips said.
After working through some monumental insurance issues, they leased a plane owned by Dr. Timothy Campbell, of Bethel Park, through the Pittsburgh Flight Training Center in West Mifflin.
Their sponsor, the "smile" internet bank, had the plane wallpapered with removable hot pink decals that make it look like a flying flamingo.
It has taken Hempleman-Adams more than a year to plan the details of this flight and to acquire the rights to fly through airspace in many countries. One of his most difficult was convincing the United States that he wanted to land the Cessna at LaGuardia Airport in New York.
"I am English. We have a Canadian pilot and an American-registered plan and we are flying in South America," Hempleman-Adams said. "We had to get air space approval for each country. It was complicated, but we resolved it."
From Pittsburgh, they will fly to Toronto, then to Resolute on Cornwallis Island and onto Eureka and to Cape Columbia on Ellesmere Island, less than 220 miles from the North Pole, where they will begin their trip south on July 6.
They will cross the Nunavut region of northern Canada, travel through the eastern United States, stopping in New York City, Baltimore, Kill Devil Hills and Naples before heading across the Caribbean to Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and finally to Cape Horn, Chile.
The Cape 2 Cape Challenge is supposed to take 17 days, but that depends on many things, including the weather.
"It snowed yesterday in Eureka," said White, 27, who met 47-year-old Hempleman-Adams 18 months ago at a flight training school in Florida where White was an instructor.
Twice before, Hempleman-Adams started on hot-air balloon adventures from the Allegheny County Airport, but ended up aborting both of them.
"I made some good friends here. It is like my second home," said Hempleman-Adams, explaining why he started the trip from here.
His previous successes include being the first man to fly a balloon over the North Pole and the first person to complete the Explorers' Grand Slam, after climbing the seven highest mountains on seven continents and successful walking to both the geographical and magnetic north and south poles.
This time, he was wearing a lucky Tibetan stone around his neck, which he got on a trip in which he scaled Mount Everest in the Himalayas.
"Last time, I forgot it and I failed," he said.
Streaming video clips and interviews of the trip will be available on www.canadianspotlight.com and www.smile.co.uk.
First Published: June 30, 2004, 4:00 a.m.