Flying adventurer Brian Milton touched down safely yesterday afternoon at the end of his epic round-the-world microlight flight. The 55-year-old pilot arrived back at Brooklands airfield in Surrey 120 days after setting off on his global journey.
A financial journalist, Milton was in the last of a flotilla of eight microlights to touch down in high winds at the end of the final leg of his journey. He flew from Netherthorpe, Derbyshire, in five hours.
After landing at Brooklands, Milton's microlight aircraft, GT Global Flyer, was taxied slowly away from the runway with two mechanics holding down the wing struts to prevent it being blown over.
Milton, from Bethnal Green, east London, planned to go for a celebratory drink at the Reform Club in London, where the fictional character Phileas Fogg celebrated his successful circumnavigation of the globe in Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.
The pilot was mobbed by television crews and cameramen at the end of his adventure.
He said he began to believe the end was in sight only when he reached the Orkney Islands.
"I began to believe I had made it when I got to the Orkneys. My major worry was I would crash into a Scottish mountain or crash in something like today's conditions," he added. The landing at Brooklands had been particularly "hairy", one of the worst of the 120-day voyage.