Pilot Ends ‘2 Hardest Days Ever’ With Record

After setting two flying records, Irvine resident Pete Wilkins said Wednesday that the longest flight he wants to make now “is from Phoenix to home.”

Wilkins landed in Phoenix at 4:51 a.m. Wednesday, 40 hours and 51 minutes after taking off from his native Sydney, Australia.

“It was the two hardest days I’ve ever spent,” Wilkins said.

Wednesday’s successful landing marked a new record for non-stop flying distance for light airplanes, according to Milton Brown, secretary of the U.S. Contest and Records Board of the National Aeronautic Assn. in Washington. Wilkins flew 7,995 miles, Brown said. The old record of 7,668 miles was set in 1959 by Max Conrad, who flew from Casablanca, Morocco, to Los Angeles. To set a new record, Wilkins’ mileage had to be at least 1% greater.

Earlier Record

“I’m very happy,” Wilkins said in a telephone interview from Phoenix. “It’s something I’ve been working for for a long time. At times I didn’t think it would happen.”

Wilkins broke another record--one he had set himself--when he flew his single-engine, six-passenger Piper Malibu to Australia. When Wilkins landed in Sydney on March 18, 44 hours and 7 minutes after taking off from Los Angeles, he established a new mark for crossing the Pacific in a light plane without refueling. He had been credited with a record of 66 1/2 hours last April when he became the first to make the flight. Bad weather on that trip forced him to spend part of his time on the ground.

Wilkins said that while he was in Australia he didn’t know if the flight to Phoenix would be possible because of the bad weather in the Pacific.

“Weather is the key to it all,” he said. “I didn’t know if I would find a time when the weather would be acceptable. It always seemed like the weather was something that would do me in.”

‘Lot of Turbulence’

While the weather on the Phoenix flight was bad, it was not severe enough to force him to land, Wilkins said. “There was a lot of turbulence and rain. The return trip was more tiring because I had to hand-fly it more” than on the flight to Sydney.

Wilkins, 50, said that he was in good shape when he landed in Phoenix, but that exhaustion caught up with him by the time he got through customs, and he was not ready to fly home. After resting for part of the day, he was to return Wednesday night. Family members and friends were to greet him at John Wayne Airport.

Wilkins said that in addition to the $385,000 cost of his airplane, which he bought in 1985, he spent about $30,000 for insurance and modifications.

“I can’t believe I’ve done it,” he said. “My goals weren’t realistic when I set them.”

Wilkins, the owner of a Santa Ana engineering consulting firm, said he isn’t planning another flight soon. “I’ve had enough flying for a while,” he said. “It’s too soon to think about it.”