In January and February, two high performance home-built aircraft will circumnavigate Central and South America to raise funds for charity.
And piloting one of those aircraft will be a Kelowna man.
Kelowna Flying Club president Dave McElroy will join two other pilots—one from Saskatchewan and one from Ontario—in the fundraising effort for Hope Air, the Canadian charity that provides free flights to people across the country who have to get to medical care far from home.
A year ago the three pilots came up with the idea of integrating their love of flight with the desire to give back, and the Give Hope Wings campaign was born.
Give Hope Wings will be a flying expedition trying to raise $500,000 for Hope Air.
The plan is to use two planes flying in formation on the expedition. One of the two, to be flown by McElroy, will leave Kelowna’s airport Jan. 2. The other, piloted by Russ Airey and Harold Fast, will take off at the same time from Windsor, Ontario.
The pilots will meet up in San Diego and launch in formation from there on Jan 8 for a 20,000 mile odyssey, taking 60 days and including 50 flights across 20 countries. The entire expedition will feature live tracking on the Give Hope Wings site.
For more information go the GiveHopeWings.ca website and follow the journey on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.