Hi everyone, with the mods permission, I would like to share some details of a flight around the world I am involved in planning. This is not a request for financial donation, it’s purely information about an aviation project I hope you will find interesting! I was hoping our website would be up so I could point you all there, but unfortunately we are having problems with the hosting, so I will try keep this post short.



Round the World Charity Flight in aid of the Sudden Adult Death Syndrome and Genetically Inherited Heart Disease

The flight will depart Leeds/Bradford Airport, LBA, in the week commencing 30th July 07 on a 6 week mission to raise awareness of Sudden Adult Death and Genetically Inherited Heart Disease. A series of lectures will be held at approximately 25 universities and hospitals around the world, as well as other educational opportunities, promotional activity and publicity. Prof N Wheeldon, an eminent cardiologist who also holds a Commercial Pilot License, will be giving the lectures and, along with Capt K Rowell, will be flying the aircraft.

The Flight Operations Team consists of 16 Aviation Technology students broken up into 4 smaller teams to focus on fundraising, media, flight planning and tour planning. Our current route is provisional, as you will see there are many flight legs that are only 200 or 300nm. When we finalise the locations of the lectures many of these will be combined. Unfortunately we cannot visit South America as we do not have the range to cross the Pacific Ocean, you will see we have to turn back on ourselves from AKL. There is also a Japanese company interested in sponsoring us so we may well be adding Japan to our destinations.



Click here for a breakdown of the airports in the above provisional route.

We hope to take delivery of our aircraft, a Cessna 340, in the coming weeks. We have our decal materials and printing sponsored so it should soon be looking good! We are also in discussions with a company to offer live flight tracking and in-flight images, as well as live aircraft telemetry on our website.

Our website is www.flightforhearts.org, at the moment we just have a little bit of information up as we are still waiting for our new site to be completed. This should be within the next 2 weeks so keep tuned!

Feel free to email me Daniel AT flightforhearts.org if you want some more information, want to be added to our newsletter mailing list to be kept updated, or want to pass on good wishes etc.
It would be good to hear from those based near airports we plan on visiting, maybe you could get a pic of the aircraft up on to airliners.net, know some good cheap accommodation or have a media contact. We have our own office in the University of Leeds, if you are near Leeds you could always drop in for a chat!

The Charities:
The Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) is a devastating heart condition that takes life and destroys families. The condition typically afflicts young adults and children that have been completely well and free of any known problems. Often the first and only sign of the condition is sudden, unexpected death in a young person who appears perfectly healthy. Many of these conditions are genetically inherited. Very often the condition produces no obvious problems in a person or their relatives until a major event such as sudden death occurs. So there is a risk to many members of a single family. Usually these conditions are inherited such that 50% of all family members are affected.

We are supporting the following three charities:
The Ashley Jolly SAD Trust SADS UK
Cardiomyopathy Association (CMA)
Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY)

As I said earlier, feel free to send me an email if you want. I have also uploaded a small document detailing the project here.

Thanks for reading

Dan
Flight for Hearts

[Edited 2007-02-11 23:05:40]