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Belgian-British teen Zara Rutherford takes disconnected successful her Shark Ultralight airplane astatine the Kortrijk-Wevelgem airfield successful Wevelgem, Belgium, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. A Belgian-British teen took to the skies Wednesday successful her quest to go the youngest pistillate to alert astir the satellite solo. Nineteen-year-old Zara Rutherford took disconnected from an airstrip successful Wevelgem, Belgium, successful an ultralight level looking to interruption the grounds acceptable by American aviator Shaesta Waiz, who acceptable the satellite benchmark astatine property 30 successful 2017. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

KORTRIJK – A Belgian-British teen took to the skies Wednesday successful her quest to go the youngest pistillate to alert astir the satellite solo.

Nineteen-year-old Zara Rutherford took disconnected from an airstrip successful Kortrijk, occidental Belgium successful gusty, overcast conditions with her parents looking on. Rutherford is aiming to interruption the grounds acceptable by American aviator Shaesta Waiz, who was 30 erstwhile she acceptable the satellite benchmark successful 2017.

Rutherford aims to alert her Shark fast, airy athletics craft implicit 5 continents and 52 countries successful an aerial trek that’s apt to instrumentality 2-3 months.

She said she wants to animate girls and young women to get into aviation and promote them to survey science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Rutherford hails from a household of pilots. She’s been traveling successful tiny planes since the property of six, began jumping retired of them – with a parachute – aged 11, past started flying herself astatine 14. She’s logged astir 130 hours of solo flights.

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Her level is specially fitted retired for the journey. It’s usually a two-seater but an other substance vessel present takes up 1 of those places. That volition besides assistance erase immoderate doubts astir whether she’s flying alone.

The Shark is excessively tiny for long-distance flying implicit the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. For the crossing implicit the Atlantic, Rutherford volition alert up done Europe and implicit Greenland. She’ll caput down done the United States, past backmost up to Alaska to transverse the Pacific. From there, she’ll caput crossed Asia backmost to Europe.

The men’s grounds for a solo circular the satellite formation is held by 18-year-old Travis Ludlow from Britain. Rutherford hopes that by narrowing the spread from 12 years to conscionable one, she’ll amusement different young women and girls that the sky’s the bounds erstwhile it comes to making their ain people connected the past of aviation.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.