Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 28, 1987, Winnipeg, Manitoba Pay your Bills using the Telephone 9479300 division of Conche services limited 298 Garry r3c1h3 Winnipeg free press june 1987 pages 1118 Circle son to seek adventure for 53 Days in wild Blue yonder by Dave Haynes Don Fonger Hopes his flight around the world this summer turns out to be pretty there is a saying about Fonger ninety per cent is being bored to tears 10 per cent being that the Way it around 8 Fonger and his son Jim plan to Roll a Piper twin Comanche plane on to the Winnipeg International Airport gun the Turboprop engines and take off heading West on the first leg of a two month flight around the for a retired Winnipeg construction consultant who says his age Doest the trip represents the ultimate Challenge of flying skills Hes been learning and refining for 40 for his 33yearold the trip is a last adventurous fling before Tak ing on the near constant demands of work As a heart surgeon and re searcher at Bostons famed har Vard medical this Falls right in the just Between the time when i am finishing up my work and when my son starts says hell never have two months off its now or the flight will see them touch five continents and Cross three using airports in 27 they will Fly Low Over the South swooping Down on to tropical hooked to oxygen they will climb and weave their Way through the Himalayas to Days soar across the Barren deserts of saudi Arabia and by the ancient monuments of natural enemy they will face a natural enemy in particularly across Mon soon swept Northern and they could run into some human such As Cranky customs officials and iraqi and iranian fighter pilots who zealously patrol the airspace above the persian this dubbed Circum has its own unique challenges the Fongers Are strictly who Fly Only when they get the their most ambitious trip until now was an Island hopping 1985 bump across the Atlantic from new York to Don Fongers Golden is 15 years old save for some new instr is the same one Hes been using for business and pleasure trips since buying it used nine years the Piper twin Comanche is the smallest twin engine plane of its class Ever made and really int built for flying to make the two 15hourplus runs across the Pacific from California to Hawaii and then on to Majuro in the mar shall the plane needs Gas tanks on the wingtips and where Luggage and supplies Are Circum 87 flying around the world normally to make room for Gas the Fongers Are shipping their Luggage ahead to just to ensure the Ocean jumps Are Fonger recently flew to Oakland to have the extra tanks he filled used Lead shot to approximate jims and then flew Home testing the planes reactions under that sister flight flying essentially the same Edmonton cardiologist Tal Alibi and securities Salesman Ken Bamford a Friend of jims plan to follow the same route and the two aircraft looking out for one an flying from the Fongers have allowed themselves three Days to wait for the safest conditions before taking off on the run to we wont take off unless we have less then 10 knots of head wind against we should have about four hours fuel to spare that and we feel Comfort Able if we took off with any less than three the two wih breathe easier once they land in since the next leg of the trip goes Over a Small atoll Airstrip that could be used if mechanical problems or bad weather once the Fongers reach the mar shall they plan to remove one of the Gas tanks and pick up their from the longest flight is no More than six that when the hassles will prob ably despite endless letters and they will Likely enter the airspace of some countries Don and son Jim plot course for an flight in twin Piper Comanche Golden without having Cut All the Neces sary red says Fonger i have talked to other world pilots who say that in the final you just flight plan and go if you have Given them enough information ahead of you take photocopies of All the stuff and you just say youre there is a Chance we will not be allowed to land in saudi for a number of people have told me they have not been Success Ful in Landing Treyve just been Given if you dont even get you have to go around Iran and the saudis that they pretty Well have to let you Fly Over Given the risks to any Pilot flying near that War torn adds chuckling and we would like to buy the saudis apparently it is 35 cents a wed like to have a Good big drink before we they Hope a big Canadian Flag in the plane window will serve As a Goodwill with fuel assorted Landing fees and accommodations and the Fongers estimate the trip will Cost approximately if they can hold to their they will make the final jump from4 Goose Bay to Winnipeg on born in Fonger moved around Western Canada wherever his fathers Railroad jobs took the he built Model air planes As a boy and daydreamed when he was Fonger and his brother talked their parents into letting them go on a plane ride Over he was As the second world War progressed and he finally grew old enough to he tried to join the Royal Canadian air but they take i had smashed my left Arm when i fell out of tree As a thirty feet and i hit the ground broke it in several i was two years with casts a real the air Force was pretty fussy and i made a mistake when i even told them about he ended up As a reinforcement officer and never made it but the student Union at the University of where Fonger was getting a civil engineering de had a lot of old pilots for due payers after the Umsu bought a plane and started offering flights and Fonger marked math papers late into the night to pay for lessons and had his licence by didst Fly much i really didst Fly very until about 15 years that was when i started to need it for my he had bought out a partner and had started handling his own construction building most of the Safeway grocery stores across the City and As Well As count less schools and Small office build to save driving time to jobs As far away As flin Fonger bought a Cessna 150 and flew to and from Job i figure flying saved me a Day a week Over four or five it also soothed i loved always in happiest when i am up in the youre sure but As his two boys grew they Learned How to Fly the breaking in their new licences with Marathon 40hour runs Down to the mexican Border and Bob thought seriously about flying As a but started look ing for work when there were More pilots than he now runs a business in for Circum 87 will be a Welcome respite from years of hard work and and a breather before years More of the he worked his Way through premed flying commercial banners Over Blue bomber games and doing weekend Beach traffic reports on a local radio budget cuts at the University of Toronto medical school sent him scrambling across North America looking for another he spent a year at a san Francisco Hospital working on a transplant flying to Harvest donor organs and earning the nickname International then he landed the heart surgical residents position at Baltimore noted Johns Hopkins University Fonger was part of the team that made medical history last month by performing a double heart trans harvesting the heart and lungs of an Accident victim and transplanting them in the body of a cystic fibrosis whose healthy heart had minutes earlier been removed and transplanted in another Man who badly needed a heart it was the first known transplant of a heart from a live to be Safeon the rest Peri ods have been built into the the schedule includes Days of rest after most flying and Fonger bluntly admits this trip is not meant As an endurance or Speed it is an but it is also a a Chance to see exotic places and make up for a lot of years when Jim has been studying and working in other there Are free Days in such places As Athens and what we would like to says smiling As he thinks More about the is have Good weather and get away from Oakland right off the so Well get ahead of schedule and have More free we dont want to give up the sight seeing part of this 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