Madison High 1995 grad commemorating 100th anniversary of historic round-the-world flight
Mansfield native Bart Gray, founder of Global Jetcare air ambulance provider in Brooksville, Florida, plans to commemorate the 100th anniversary of an historic around-the-world flight starting Thursday and finishing April 6.
Gray, 47, a 1995 graduate of Madison Comprehensive High School, plans to complete the flight in a Learjet 36A, one of six Learjets in Global Jetcare’s fleet. The flight will also act as a fundraiser to help restore a historic Learjet Model 23, Serial 23-003. The Learjet 23, owned by Wichita, Kansas-based Classic Lear Jet Foundation, was the third of its kind to be manufactured and the first to be delivered to a customer. It was built in 1964, according to thecenturymission.org.
Bart is one of four pilots making the flight.
On Friday, his parents, Tom and Christina Gray, were about to board a flight from Florida to Wichita for a party and celebration before the journey.
By telephone, Christina Gray said her son got his pilot's license at age 17 at Mansfield Lahm Airport.
"He wanted to go to Annapolis ...," his mother said. But that didn't work out so he chose Ohio University to pursue a bachelor's degree in aviation.
She said at age 25 he started his first air-ambulance business.
His uncle, Alan Gray, and his wife, Shirley, contacted the News Journal Friday morning to share the news about their nephew's flight.
"We're really proud of him," Alan Gray said, adding that Bart was an Eagle Scout.
How Bart Gray got started in aviation
In college, Gray said everybody believed they knew what they were going to do in aviation but they didn't really know, he told Jordan Edwards, host of the "Clockedin" podcast.
Gray said in the podcast episode that flying is a "bug you catch, and you're just stuck with it for life, good or bad."
Gray said he was always interested in flying, airplanes and building model airplanes.
His mom worked for Hi-Stat Manufacturing in Lexington, which manufactured car parts, and the company owned a Learjet.
His mom worked in the company's computer/IT/payroll department and she was going with colleagues on the company jet to Boston. There was an extra seat and Bart rode on the jet for the day. He got to talk to the pilots and one told him how he became a pilot and said he "just fell in love with it," he said on the podcast.
The trip is expected to take 54 hours, start to finish
Gray, along with three other pilots and an observer, plan to leave from the Bombardier Learjet facility in Wichita on Thursday, take off westbound for the journey and land back in Wichita on April 6 — 100 years to the day since the original flight departed.
The pilots are planning stops in Salinas, California; Kailua, Hawaii; the Marshall Islands; Palau; Thailand; Pakistan; Egypt; Italy; Portugal, and Canada. The goal is to limit all ground stops to 30 minutes, which means the crew must work in coordination and quickly, Gray told "Aviation Week" in an article published in January.
The trip is expected to take 54 hours from start to finish, or about 48 flight hours. Gray will take the lead as captain. The Learjet 36A will be modified with a bed so two pilots can sleep while the other two fly. Besides Gray, two of the pilots on board also fly for Global Jetcare. The fourth pilot is John Bone, who in 2017 completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in a Cirrus SR22, covering 21,078 kilometers with 19 stops, Aviation Week reported.
Gray was inspired to make the trip after reading a book by author Lowell Thomas describing the Army Air Service’s first successful around-the-world flight. In the early 1920s, several countries were competing to be first. British and French teams tried unsuccessfully. The Italians, Portuguese and British also made plans. In 1923, the U.S. Army Air Service assigned a group of officers to the project. Using four Douglas World Cruisers, modified Douglas DT-2 torpedo bombers, pilots took off April 6, 1924, from Seattle and flew westward. Two aircraft finished the flight, flying 26,345 miles in more than 363 flight hours over 175 calendar days, according to "Aviation Week."
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Mansfield OH native going around world 100 years after historic flight
