Round-the-World Helo Pilots on Track for Record

Round-the-world helicopter speed record-seekers Scott Kasprowicz and Steve Sheik will have seen many views like this from their AgustaWestland 109 Grand. This view is from the cockpit of their aircraft. Credit: The Grand Adventure 2008

In their attempt to break the speed record for world circumnavigation by helicopter, the two pilots flying an AgustaWestland 109 Grand twin-engine chopper have made considerable progress since they began their flight on Aug. 7 — but not without incident.

After leaving New York’s La Guardia Airport to begin the attempt, which they named "The Grand Adventure" after the helicopter model they were flying, Scott Kasprowicz and Steve Sheik kicked off their quest for one world record by setting a different one.

The pilots landed their very-nearly-new AgustaWestland 109 just south of London only 40 hours after leaving LaGuardia, a time easily good enough (if the flight is ratified) to beat the current record for a rotorcraft flight from New York to London. Remarkably, Kasprowicz and Sheik beat the previous record time by 35 hours — nearly cutting the record in half.

“It’s been an exhilarating and exhausting first few days,” said Kasprowicz after landing at Redhill Aerodrome in Surrey, just south of London, early on Saturday morning. Major UK helicopter operator Bristow Helicopters is headquartered at Redhill. “We’ve experienced every possible type of weather condition including rain, icing and strong headwinds.”

A week after leaving New York, the team is already most of the way across Russia and hopes to land in Alaska by the end of the day. However, the last two days have seen the flight’s pace drop dramatically.

In Okhotsk, construction at one airport and another airport running out of fuel grounded the team for an entire day. The delay did allow for some needed rest and relaxation for the pilots, who spent the day sleeping and preparing to get back on track.

The next night, the team experienced its biggest challenge so far. After taking off from Magadan, the oil temperature in the number 1 engine rose until the pilots were forced to shut it down. They made it safely to their next stop on just one engine, but it took a conference between the pilots, crew and AgustaWestland's technical support staff to solve the engine problem.

After a test flight to make sure the engine was functioning normally again, the record-seekers were forced to spend the night at the interim stop before continuing their flight this morning.

The current record holders, Ron Bower and John Williams, set their mark of 17 days back in 1995, flying a twin-engine Bell 430, topping the previous record (which Bower set in 1994) by seven days.

If Kasprowicz and Sheik beat Bower’s time, and their time for the global circumnavigation flight is ratified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (the standard-setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics), it will represent their third world record this year. In addition to the New York-London record that they will have set on this trip, in February the pair set the fastest time for a rotorcraft flight from New York to Los Angeles.

The progress of Kasprowicz and Sheik can be tracked at grandadventure08.com.

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