By Nathan Duke
A national aviation hero from Florida was cheered on by hundreds of students from Astoria’s IS 10 last week as he relayed the story of how he became the youngest person and the first black pilot to take a solo flight around the world.
Barrington Irving, 26, told the tale of his 97-day flight, which began in Florida and circled the globe when he was 23. The pilot, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, but grew up in Miami, traveled more than 30,000 miles on his 2007 journey.
“For 2 1/2 years, people told me, ‘No,’” Irving told an auditorium full of IS 10 students. “They said, ‘There’s no way you can make it around the world.’ That’s why it’s important to be persistent, be patient and let things fall in line.”
Irving said he grew up in a rough Miami neighborhood and that some friends from his youth had been killed or imprisoned. He originally had his heart set on playing football and was offered a full scholarship to play the sport, but he eventually turned it down after becoming fascinated by aviation.
“At the time, it felt like the worst decision because everyone laughed at me,” he said. “My coaches thought there was something wrong with me and girls at my high school wouldn’t talk to me anymore. But I believed that I could become a pilot because I knew I could do it.”
Irving, who earned a pilot license and went on to attend Florida Memorial University as an aeronautical science major, spent several years attempting to get his dream off the ground. But he was unable to convince anyone to rent or lease him a plane.
So the pilot undertook more than one year of research and finally persuaded several companies to donate airplane parts to his cause, allowing him to eventually build his own aircraft, which he named Inspiration.
His flight began in Florida and took him through several states, including New York, Canada, as well as numerous locales around the world, such as Madrid, Rome, Athens, Cairo, the Nile River, Dubai, Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and then back to the United States by way of Anchorage.
Barrington said his trip was dangerous despite his having the parts to fly the plane.
“I had nothing to de-ice the wings of my plane and my weather radar did not work outside the United States,” he said. “Also, I don’t know how to swim. I was flying over the ocean for 12 hours with a single engine and it was nerve-wracking.”
He amazed the students with stories about how he dropped from 13,000 feet to 9,200 feet to glide through a massive monsoon over Vietnam and how he navigated through a sandstorm at 17,000 feet in Saudi Arabia.
Barrington has been honored with a Congressional Resolution on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. and has received the Florida State Senate’s Medallion of Excellence. He has founded Experience Aviation, a nonprofit organization that encourages youths to consider careers in aviation.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e-mail at nduke@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
