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Round The World Flight, Project Amelia Earhart 1937-2017, in a Mooney Airplane On an early June morning in 2017, pilot Brian Lloyd will climb high into the sky above Florida in his Mooney M20K 231 airplane named "Spirit". His objective will be to retrace an historic equatorial flight route for Project Amelia Earhart, commemorating 80 years since that famous attempt at circumnavigating the world in 1937. For Brian's solo round-the-world flight, his classic single engine aircraft has been newly refitted with a suite of modern cockpit avionics. Also, a Micom 3 HF radio and antenna system has been installed for long distance aeronautical communications, as well as the opportunity to talk with ham radio operators during certain phases of the flight. An additional fuel tank boosts the extended range for long oceanic route segments. In addition to the normal electronics gear such as VHF and GPS, the airplane equipment includes computer, satphone, ADF, DME, and Stormscope. The aircraft position will be tracked by satellite on the project's website. The flight will attempt to keep to the historic Earhart calendar schedule as closely as possible, crossing the Caribbean, South America, Mid-Atlantic, Africa, Middle-East, Southern Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific. Brian Lloyd comments, "At this point the planning shows that longest leg of the flight will be from Fiji, across Howland Island (where Amelia and Fred disappeared), and then on to Kauai, Hawaii. That leg is 2,788 nm (3,208mi or 5,163 km) long. The flight time for that leg will be about 15 hours." There are no landing facilities on Howland, so he will overfly the island, dropping two leis, one each in memory of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. The commemorative flight's final destinations include a stop at Amelia Earhart Airport in Atchison, Kansas, then on to the 2017 EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh Wisconsin USA on Monday 24 July. Link: Project Amelia Earhart website Link: Project Amelia Earhart Facebook page Link: Project Amelia Earhart funding page Link: Project Amelia Earhart Youtube Video Link: HF Radio system in the Mooney