Thirty-nine legs. Five continents. Nineteen countries. 24,045 nautical miles in a single-engine Sling TSi. Below is every stop on the 2025 circumnavigation, with a short note from Byron about each place.
| # | From → To | Country | Date | NM | From Byron |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Brisbane → Roma BNE → RMA | Australia | 9 Aug 2025 | 238 | "Brisbane Tower cleared us, and the moment those wheels left 01R I knew the next 67 days were real. Roma is small, dusty, the kind of strip you grow up dreaming about, a perfect first page." |
| 02 | Roma → Alice Springs RMA → ASP | Australia | 10 Aug 2025 | 825 | "Six hours of red dirt and nothing else under the wing. Alice is where Australia goes silent, and where you really start trusting your fuel plan." |
| 03 | Alice Springs → Port Hedland ASP → PHE | Australia | 11 Aug 2025 | 875 | "Port Hedland is iron-ore country, orange ships on a blue sea. Last avgas on Australian soil. From here, the next stop is an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean." |
| 04 | Port Hedland → Christmas Island PHE → XCH | Australia (Territory) | 13 Aug 2025 | 955 | "First serious over-water leg. No diversion, no land, just survival suit and a single engine humming. Christmas Island rises out of the haze like a green hat on the ocean." |
| 05 | Christmas Island → Singapore XCH → XSP | Singapore | 15 Aug 2025 | 723 | "Crossed the equator at 0°00.000′. Seletar Tower greeted me by name. Singapore is the first time the trip felt international, and the first hot shower in a week." |
| 06 | Singapore → Colombo XSP → CMB | Sri Lanka | 17 Aug 2025 | 1,477 | "Eleven hours of cloud-tops and reading checklists out loud to stay sharp. Colombo welcomed me with garlands and a press camera I didn't expect, that's where the 'chase your dream' line came out." |
| 07 | Colombo → Ahmedabad CMB → AMD | India | 20 Aug 2025 | 1,164 | "India under the wing is patchwork green and dust. Ahmedabad ATC was the busiest I'd flown into, I just slowed down, read back everything twice." |
| 08 | Ahmedabad → Abu Dhabi AMD → AUH | UAE | 22 Aug 2025 | 1,073 | "Coast of India fades, eight hours of Arabian Sea, then the Gulf glitters like glass. Abu Dhabi is heat-shimmer and a marble terminal you're not supposed to taxi past in a Sling." |
| 09 | Abu Dhabi → Ha'il AUH → HAS | Saudi Arabia | 25 Aug 2025 | 831 | "The empty quarter. Sand-coloured everything. Ha'il is a tiny dot in the middle of a desert that doesn't end, and one of the most generous fuel crews on the route." |
| 10 | Ha'il → Hurghada HAS → HRG | Egypt | 27 Aug 2025 | 444 | "Crossed the Red Sea, Asia behind, Africa ahead. Hurghada is salt air, dive boats, and the first time I let myself say 'a third of the way around the planet.'" |
| 11 | Hurghada → Heraklion HRG → HER | Greece | 30 Aug 2025 | 659 | "Mediterranean blue all the way to Crete. Heraklion smells like olive trees and jet-A. Europe in the windscreen for the first time in my life." |
| 12 | Heraklion → Palermo HER → PMO | Italy | 1 Sep 2025 | 647 | "Sicilian coast on the descent, a real cinema moment. Palermo ATC speaks fast Italian and faster English; I just kept my radio calls short and friendly." |
| 13 | Palermo → Alghero PMO → AHO | Italy | 3 Sep 2025 | 292 | "A short, beautiful Tyrrhenian hop. Sardinia from the air looks like a postcard someone forgot to colour in." |
| 14 | Alghero → Perpignan AHO → PGF | France | 4 Sep 2025 | 277 | "Pyrenees off the left wing, vineyards off the right. France from a Sling at 7,500 feet is the kind of thing you don't talk over the radio about." |
| 15 | Perpignan → Pontoise (Paris) PGF → POX | France | 5 Sep 2025 | 409 | "Pontoise sits on the edge of Paris, and the Eiffel Tower poked through the cloud on descent. The trip suddenly felt very famous and very small at the same time." |
| 16 | Pontoise (Paris) → Brighton City POX → ESH | United Kingdom | 7 Sep 2025 | 150 | "The Channel is short, grey, and historic. Brighton City strip is right on the cliffs, I rocked the wings for the surfers below." |
| 17 | Brighton City → Cambridge ESH → CBG | United Kingdom | 8 Sep 2025 | 92 | "Cambridge is where the BBC met me on the ramp. I'd never done a live cross before, turns out the trick is just talk to them like you'd talk to your tower controller." |
| 18 | Cambridge → Prestwick CBG → PIK | United Kingdom | 10 Sep 2025 | 258 | "Prestwick is the historic ferry-flight gateway, every long-range pilot worth their salt has touched this concrete. Mist, gulls, the smell of old kerosene. Loved it." |
| 19 | Prestwick → Wick PIK → WIC | United Kingdom | 11 Sep 2025 | 222 | "Wick is the last stop before the wild stuff. From here the survival suit lives on, the life raft sits on the right seat, and you stop joking about the water temperature." |
| 20 | Wick → Vágar (Faroes) WIC → FAE | Denmark (Faroes) | 13 Sep 2025 | 251 | "Faroes appear like spikes punched through cloud. Vágar's runway clings to a fjord; you fly the approach and try not to stare." |
| 21 | Vágar (Faroes) → Reykjavík FAE → BIRK | Iceland | 14 Sep 2025 | 487 | "Iceland from the air doesn't look real. Black sand, green moss, white glaciers. Reykjavík was the first place I saw the northern lights, over a hangar, at 1am, alone." |
| 22 | Reykjavík → Kulusuk BIRK → KUS | Greenland | 16 Sep 2025 | 397 | "Greenland is just ice. White, blue, white, blue, then a gravel strip. Kulusuk is two buildings and a wind sock, and the most beautiful place I have ever landed." |
| 23 | Kulusuk → Narsarsuaq KUS → UAK | Greenland | 17 Sep 2025 | 465 | "The ice cap fills the entire windscreen for two hours. Narsarsuaq's approach is up a fjord, no go-around option, commit, and land." |
| 24 | Narsarsuaq → Goose Bay UAK → YYR | Canada | 19 Sep 2025 | 702 | "North Atlantic again, then Labrador's spruce forests. Goose Bay is a Cold War airfield, the runways are wider than my home town." |
| 25 | Goose Bay → Baie-Comeau YYR → YBC | Canada | 20 Sep 2025 | 454 | "The St. Lawrence is enormous, like a sea pretending to be a river. Baie-Comeau ATC was bilingual; I stuck to English, slowly." |
| 26 | Baie-Comeau → Québec YBC → YQB | Canada | 21 Sep 2025 | 194 | "Québec City from 3,000 feet looks like a model. Short leg, big smile." |
| 27 | Québec → Niagara Falls YQB → IAG | Canada | 22 Sep 2025 | 428 | "Cleared for the Niagara overflight, spray as high as my wing. Best 90 seconds of sightseeing on the whole trip." |
| 28 | Niagara Falls → Jackson, MI IAG → JXN | United States | 24 Sep 2025 | 279 | "First touchdown on US soil, Customs in Jackson, polite as anything. Cornfields forever." |
| 29 | Jackson, MI → St. Louis, MO JXN → STL | United States | 25 Sep 2025 | 345 | "The Arch caught the late sun on final. The Mississippi from above is genuinely a moving thing, both literally and emotionally." |
| 30 | St. Louis, MO → Midland, TX STL → MAF | United States | 27 Sep 2025 | 709 | "Texas is big in a way that even Australian outback pilots have to respect. Midland is oil derricks and the friendliest line crew on the continent." |
| 31 | Midland, TX → El Paso, TX MAF → ELP | United States | 28 Sep 2025 | 224 | "The border slides past underneath, Juárez to the south, El Paso to the north. ATC handled it like it was nothing. It wasn't nothing." |
| 32 | El Paso, TX → Phoenix, AZ ELP → PHX | United States | 29 Sep 2025 | 289 | "Saguaro cactus shadows on the descent. Phoenix in the afternoon is a hairdryer with a runway attached." |
| 33 | Phoenix, AZ → Grand Canyon PHX → GCN | United States | 30 Sep 2025 | 157 | "Grand Canyon from the right seat of a Sling is, I'm not going to ruin it with words. Just go fly it." |
| 34 | Grand Canyon → Torrance, CA GCN → TOA | United States | 2 Oct 2025 | 335 | "Coast-in over LAX's airspace, managed under flight following. Torrance is the GA capital of SoCal; every kid in the FBO wanted to look at the Sling." |
| 35 | Torrance, CA → Hollister, CA TOA → CVH | United States | 3 Oct 2025 | 239 | "Hollister: my last mainland fuel before the longest single leg of my life. Slept badly, weather-checked obsessively, and signed the fuel slip with a slightly shaky hand." |
| 36 | Hollister, CA → Kona, HI CVH → KOA | United States | 5 Oct 2025 | 2,085 | "Fifteen hours, no diversion, one engine. Sunset, then dark, then sunrise, all over the same ocean. Kona's runway lights at the end of that was the best thing I've ever seen." |
| 37 | Kona, HI → Pago Pago KOA → PPG | American Samoa | 8 Oct 2025 | 2,212 | "Equator crossing #2, this time going south. Pago Pago smells like the tropics did when I was a kid. Almost home." |
| 38 | Pago Pago → Nadi PPG → NAN | Fiji | 11 Oct 2025 | 714 | "Lost a whole day to the date line, and gained Fiji in exchange. Sounds like a fair trade." |
| 39 | Nadi → Nouméa NAN → NOU | New Caledonia | 13 Oct 2025 | 684 | "Coral Sea blue under the wings. Nouméa is the last foreign stamp in the passport. Brisbane is just one more leg." |
| 40 | Nouméa → Brisbane (home) NOU → BNE | Australia | 15 Oct 2025 | 784 | "Brisbane Tower said 'welcome home, Byron', and I cried, on the radio, on the descent. Mum, Dad, my sister, and a whole crowd on the GA ramp. 67 days. Done." |
| Totals · 39 legs · 5 continents · 19 countries | 24,045 | ≈ 44,531 km | |||
Distances per pilot's log · some shown as direct great-circle