KAHULUI, Maui — A pair of South African pilots moved one hop closer to circumnavigating the Earth when they touched down Friday afternoon at Kahului Airport. Operating a single-engine, two-seat airplane, they just had completed a 22-hour, 2,138-mile flight from Torrance Municipal Airport near Los Angeles.

James Pitman and Mike Blyth, co-owners of the Airplane Factory in Johannesburg, seemed little the worse for wear when they arrived in the modified version of their company's prototype aircraft, The Sling. Once the bright-yellow plane was parked, they exchanged a high-five in the cockpit and began videotaping themselves to document the moment. They said the strong winds that helped push them across the ocean made the last few hundred yards interesting.
"A bit of a nasty landing," Pitman said. "A bit windy, isn't it?"
"But it was no problem really. It handles so well, that little plane," Blyth said.
The pilots diverted themselves to Kahului after originally setting their sights on Hilo International Airport. They said that mid-Pacific decision was minor compared to a more important one they had to make. Due to stronger-than-predicted head winds that impeded their progress for the first 7-1/2 hours of their flight, they nearly turned back for California.
"We had a few nerve-racking moments today when we had to decide whether to turn around or go," Blyth said. "It was a little bit of a gamble because without tail winds, we would have landed in the sea."
As it turned out, they dropped down through a hole in the clouds and found the tail winds they were looking for at 1,500-feet elevation. After maintaining that altitude for most of their flight, they landed with 10 gallons — enough for two more hours of flying — remaining of their 118-gallon fuel capacity. On the way, they snacked on sandwiches and drank coffee and "loads of water." When they had to go to the bathroom, they did it in bottles.
The pair said they saw no sign of Hurricane Felicia on the flight but plan to leave Maui a day early, on Sunday, well before the storm's anticipated arrival Monday.
The total projected distance of their journey is a bit more than 28,000 miles. They took off from Johannesburg on July 18 and plan to return there Aug. 22. In Oshkosh, Wis., they were part of the town's Airventure, which is billed as the world's greatest air show.
"We parked in a prominent place and drank a lot," Pitman said.
Flying over Arizona, they experienced their only really dicey moment of the trip so far when their engine cut out after one of the six fuel tanks installed in the wings ran dry. They described the incident on their blog.
"We had quite an interesting moment over Arizona somewhere when our left-B tank ran dry - the first time we've forgotten to change tanks so far on the trip. We've always thought that in that situation the engine would splutter a bit, giving us time to swap tanks, but it just suddenly stopped dead. The prop keeps spinning though, and we were on to it like lynxes. It probably took us less than three seconds to get both A-tank selectors and fuel pump switched on, and then another five seconds for the engine to restart. Of course those eight seconds feel quite a bit longer though when you're up there and on your way down!"
Friday's Torrance-to-Kahului leg was the second longest of the trip. The longest segment was the 2,485-mile trans-Atlantic hop from Conarky, Guinea, to Belem, Brazil. On Sunday, they plan to take off from Kahului for a 2,432-mile flight to Majuro in the Marshall Islands.
Pitman said it was difficult to gain permission to land in the Marshall Islands, and they were told that generally the only aircraft that lands there uses jet aviation fuel, not the standard gasoline their plane runs on.
The Sling is a light-sport aircraft with a 100-horsepower engine and a wingspan that is 1 inch short of 30 feet. Its cockpit is 44 inches wide. Pitman and Blyth said their only modifications to the plane involved more than tripling its fuel capacity, converting the seats so they would lie nearly flat and beefing up the landing gear to support the additional weight. They said when they land back in South Africa, they believe it will be the smallest plane ever flown around the world.
To chart their progress or learn more about their journey, visit their company's Web site at www.airplanefactory.co.za.