Around the World in 40 Hours? : Flier Aims at Globe-Circling Mark

What Clay Lacy needed was something more to do.

Ordinarily, all Lacy does is run an $8-million-a-year aircraft charter business, fly as a captain for United Airlines, perform in his purple fighter plane in air shows and serve as president of the Van Nuys Airport Assn. and chairman of the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council.

So, to fill in his spare time, Lacy is helping organize an attempt to break the round-the-world flight record later this month to raise money for charity.

Lacy, 56, of Encino is planning to fly a Boeing 747 around the world in less than 40 hours to break the record of 45 hours, 26 minutes, 55 seconds set in June by Allen E. Paulson of Savannah, Ga., in a Gulfstream IV business jet.

The only faster times for global circumnavigation were posted by spacecraft in orbit.

Military fighters, far faster than the passenger jets that record setters have been flying, could easily better the times, but governments have not seen the quest as worth the money, Lacy said.

Lacy and two fellow organizers of the circumnavigation, Joe Clark and Bruce McCaw, plan to carry 100 passengers, who had to donate at least $5,000 to the Friendship One Foundation to be eligible for a seat. They said the foundation will distribute the money to charities that benefit children, including the City of Hope in Duarte, Children’s Hospital in Seattle and UNICEF.

The flight is completely booked, with more than $500,000 raised and more money coming in, Clark said. The cost, which Lacy estimated at $25,000 to $30,000, is being underwritten by more than 25 corporate sponsors, including United Airlines, which is loaning the plane, to be named “Friendship One” for the flight. Boeing, which manufactured the plane, and Pratt & Whitney, which made its engines, are paying for the fuel, they said.

Among the passengers are Neil Armstrong, first human on the moon, and Moya Lear of Reno, Nev., Clark said. Lear is the widow of William Lear Sr., developer of the first personal jet plane, the Lear Jet, in which Hank Beard set a round-the-world record in 1965 of 55 hours.

Lacy said he began talking about setting a record with McCaw, part-owner of McCaw Communications Cos. of Seattle, and Clark, co-founder of Horizon Airlines of Seattle, at the Paris Air Show last summer.

Lacy said he already holds nine aviation records, including one for the shortest round trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco--64 minutes in a Lear Jet--and the jetliner records for the fastest time from Seattle to the North Pole and from Nairobi, Africa, to Bombay, India.

“We’ve always wanted to set a record that couldn’t be beat very easily,” Clark said. “It has do to with making our own mark in aviation.”

Lacy said they plan to leave the evening of Jan. 28 from the Museum of Flight at the Boeing plant in Seattle. The flight is timed to catch the jet stream, a high-altitude wind that blows from west to east, while it is in its period of peak strength, reached in January and February each year.

The first leg of the flight, 8,400 miles in a planned 14 1/2 hours, will follow the jet stream eastward over Kansas, leave the United States near Washington, D.C., and pass over the Azores on its way to Portugal and Spain. Crossing the Mediterranean, the plane will land at Athens, the first of two fuel stops. The second leg, estimated to take 11 hours to cover 7,200 miles, will pass over Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Strait of Hormuz, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Vietnam and land at Taipei in Taiwan for fuel. The third leg, 7,400 miles--which Lacy hopes to cover in less than 12 hours--will cross Japan, Midway Island in the Pacific and end in Seattle on Jan. 30.

The 747 is an SP model, built with an 8,800-mile range for New York-Tokyo flights, and should have no trouble making the distances, Lacy said.

So that the 137 people on board can nap, mattresses will be spread across coach-class seats in the big plane, which is capable of carrying up to 300 passengers. An exercise bicycle, food and drinks “better than first class” and “lots of first run movies” will also be provided, Clark said.

Lacy will have two co-pilots and two flight engineers, and there will be nine flight attendants, all United employees who volunteered, he said.

The Air Force is providing satellite communications between the plane and a mission control headquarters at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, which will be staffed by teen-age students, under adult supervision, in keeping with the theme of helping and inspiring children, Lacy said.