Blind pilot on 55-nation tour

Bhopal, Mar 28 (UNI) Fifty-eight-year-old Miles Hilton-Barber is undertaking a 55-nation tour in his microlight aircraft for a public awakening campaign aimed at bringing prosperity to the lives of the visually-challenged and, hold your breath, he is himself sightless! He is accompanied by co-pilot Richard Meredith-Hardy and is aided by a speech output technique whereby instruments respond to verbal commands. The duo touched down to a rousing welcome at the local airport yesterday. Hilton, the first flyer to embark on such an epic journey, left London on March 7 and will cover about 25,000 km to reach his final destination Sydney on April 25.

The tour, under the aegis of the Standard Chartered Bank's corporate responsibility campaign 'Seeing is Believing', is aimed at gathering a million pounds for ocular surgery.

''When I was 18, I wanted to become a fighter pilot. I appeared for a test but was rejected on account of poor vision,'' Hilton-Barber told reporters. He had later gone completely blind.

Tomorrow, Hilton-Barber will take part in a rally here and be honoured by Governor Balram Jakhar at Raj Bhavan. He will start for Raipur tomorrow and reach Bangladesh on March 31 via Kolkata. The adventurer has already covered Italy, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Jordan, Dubai and Pakistan.

UNI