A power station engineer, Ike, who lives mainly in Perth in between commissioning and starting up gas turbine power stations, was in Chennai en route Kuala Lumpur on his way back to Perth. He has travelled through Europe, America, Africa and Asia. Among the places he has touched are Papua New Guinea, Hawaiian Islands and Alaska. He travelled down to Oshkosh in Wisconsin for Airventure, the largest air show of the world, in which 12,000 aircraft participated, on July 29.

After a six-week holiday visiting his family and friends in Canada, he started on the second leg on Oct 4. In this phase he has travelled to Greenland, Rekjavik in Iceland, Scotland, Greece, Luxor, Saudi Arabia and Muscat before flying over the Arabian Sea to landhere.

"I arrived in Chennai on Tuesday at 5.15 p.m. and after refuelling, Air India personnel took care of my Customs clearance. I could not leave Chennai on Wednesday due to bad weather over Bay of Bengal,'' Ike said. He will now head for Kuala Lumpur.

Ike's Mustang-II aircraft was built by a retired Quantas aircraft engineer, Keith Copeland, of Perth. You may mistake it for a sports car.

He had built the plane for his own use but suffered a mild heart attack and was forced to sell it. Keith has extended Ike logistical support and technical advise.

The plane is worth about $ 60,000. The trip will probably cost about $ 10,000. ``All the money was mine. My whole life's savings are tied up. It took me 71 hours of flying (from Perth to Canada) and I estimate another 77 hours of flying back to Perth from Canada. Some days, there are three or four hours of flying and on others there are 10. This gives time to ponder and reflect. After getting his pilot's licence in Australia in 1996, Ike's first flyingchallenge was taking his wife and daughter around Australia. It took about two weeks. ``After returning, the question was what my next challenge in life was going to be? Jokingly, I said fly around the world. I started working towards that goal''. So far, Ike has notched up 400 hours of flying.

His next challenge, Ike says, is to quit smoking on his 40th birthday (Dec 3). ``It seems to be more difficult than my millennium mission.''