« on: December 14, 2003, 12:04:55 AM »
Sat Dec 13, 8:03 PM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Stormy weather forced an Australian adventurer stranded in Antarctica to delay his flight out of the frozen continent on Sunday after receiving emergency fuel supplies for his home-made aircraft from a British rival.
Jon Johanson, who became the first person to fly solo over the South Pole in a fixed wing plane, remained in good spirits and still hoped to leave Antarctica for New Zealand by the end of the weekend, said his partner in Adelaide.
"Obviously we don't want him to leave until there is a good weather forecast for him, at the moment there is a nasty weather system passing underneath New Zealand which of course means it's in his tracks," Sue Ball said.
"So we have to wait until that's gone through before he can then come up from McMurdo," she told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Johanson became the first person to fly solo over the South Pole in a fixed wing aircraft after he flew from New Zealand and over the South Pole in his home-made aircraft on Monday.
But his plan to fly on to Argentina went wrong when headwinds forced him to make an emergency landing at the U.S. McMurdo Antarctic base.
The adventurer received an icy reception with officials at the U.S. base and the nearby New Zealand Scott base. Keen to discourage such ad-hoc stunts, they refused to give or sell him the 88 gallons of aviation fuel he needed to return to New Zealand.
Johanson's plane has since been refueled with emergency supplies provided by British aviator Polly Vacher who had been planning a similar trip and had pre-positioned some fuel at the McMurdo station.
New Zealand had offered Johanson a military flight out of the frozen continent and said it would ship his aircraft to New Zealand in January at his expense.
But Johanson was reluctant to leave his homemade RV-4 aircraft in which he has flown around the world, including over the North Pole, three times.
Three times around the world, and both poles to boot!
« Last Edit: December 14, 2003, 12:11:54 AM by Holden McGroin »
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