Flight Overview

Matevž had to fight countless dangers and obstacles, both natural and human-caused, such as long flights over endless forests or freezing arctic seas without the chance of an emergency landing, danger of storms and strong winds, extremely low temperatures, troublesome bureaucracy and above all, himself, with hallucinations and exhaustion as the result of countless hours, having to be perfectly focused on flying.
So who is the man who managed this titanic task?
Matevž Lenarčič is an adventurer, mountain climber, paraglider and pilot. He was climbing mountains in Greenland, Patagonia and Himalaya and paraglided from Himalayan mountain tops.
In the last years he devoted himself to flying and photography.


For the task of flying around the world, Pipistrel manufactured an improved, modified Sinus airplane specially for Matevž. The long list of modifications included larger gasoline tanks, rescue equipment, more storage space, removal of the second set of controls...

The flight was an adventure, but a beautiful one. Here you can see some of the photographs that Matevž took from the plane:

Following the huge public exposure at Oskhosh's Airventure 2004, Matevz flew over to Springdale in the state of Arkansas where his Sinus was upgraded with a complimentary autopilot unit kindly provided by TruTrak company, which Pipistrel also represents for Slovenian market.
Matevz's further routing would have taken him through a devastating hurricane so he abolished this plan and headed further northbound. Soon after departing Springdale, a fully unexpected event striked Matevz in flight. He lost the top engine composite cover, which simply forgot to re-fasten in all will for flying. A forced landing and immediate help from the team of Pipistrel USA solved the problem in a couple of days. Matevz was able to continue flight towards Montreal.
Flying further north over the Canadian vast wilderness Matevz began to feel strange propeller vibration and performed a precautionary landing at Wabush. The propeller indeed proved incapable of further operation. Like an angel service Pipistrel USA offered assistance again and provided Matevz with a completely new propeller.