Young Aviators Pursue Round-the-World Goal

At a recent air show in Oshkosh, Wis., several people sidled up to the “World Flight 2000” booth to ask the young aviators the same, carefully phrased question: Do you remember Jessica Dubroff?

“Each one was kind of looking at the ground when they asked,” said Daniel Dominguez, a bit irked to hear repeated mention of the 7-year-old girl who was killed in 1996 while trying to become the youngest person to fly across the United States.

Dominguez, fellow pilot Chris Wall and photographer Jesse Weisz are embarking from Rochester in a silver-bodied, twin-engine plane Sept. 1 in a bid to become the youngest flight crew on record to circle the globe.

They all turned 22 this year. To some onlookers, notably a few sponsors who held back on donations, that still doesn’t seem nearly old enough to be hopping across oceans, over icebergs and war zones, through horizon-blotting clouds.

The crew is downplaying the “youngest” aspect of the flight. “It’d be a nice thing to set a record but it’s not the reason the flight’s taking place,” said Dominguez, who graduated in May with an economics degree from the University of Rochester.

More important is just the sheer adventure of steering 26,500-plus miles eastward in “Dreamcatcher.” Their 1957 Aero Commander 560E is the same aircraft model once used to ferry President Dwight Eisenhower to his Pennsylvania farm.

Dominguez and Wall, who have logged thousands of flying hours since getting their pilot’s licenses at 17, bought the disused plane with a $15,000 loan in 1998. They’ve refitted it themselves with everything from new propellers to sophisticated avionics and buffed it up like a mirror.

As teachers got wind of the project, schoolchildren frequently showed up at the airport by the busload. They were encouraged to climb into the cockpit, play with the controls, ask questions. The lesson the crew wishes to impart: Work hard enough at it, and big dreams can be fulfilled.

“There’s always an excuse not to go after your dream,” said Wall, an engineering senior at Rice University in Houston. “We’ve got to do this now. We don’t know if we’ll have another opportunity--we’ll have too many ties, too many responsibilities.”

Weisz, a film studies graduate from South Orange, N.J., will provide daily photo-and-video updates of the 3 1/2-month trip on the Internet (www.worldflight2000.org).

The longest leg will be a 14-hour, 2,042-mile hop from Hawaii to San Jose, Calif. Flying has “inherent risks,” Wall said, but he worries more about foul-ups on the ground.

The project is largely self-financed. Dominguez has been busy flying freight, reporting rush-hour traffic jams for radio stations and giving flying lessons. Wall has worked every spare minute as an aircraft mechanic.