Solo Flights around the World

The year 1969 saw two solo flights around the World. The pilots, two doctors, who appeared to know one another, were Dr. Alvin Marks and Dr.Hypolite Landry. The two flights, flown one month apart, followed the same route, and stopped at the same airports. Although they set speed records, Landry and Marks did not compete against each other. Instead of setting records from point to point where they may have been in competition, they chose to set their records from their respective point of departure to each stop. For Dr. Marks that was between Sacramento and various airports en route to Karachi, and then from subsequent airports to Sacramento. For Dr. Landry, his records were set between Baton Rouge in Louisiana, and various airports en route to Bangkok, and then from subsequent airports to Baton Rouge.

Very little is known of either of these two flights except for information obtained through the archives of the FAI in Lausanne.

Dr. Alvin Marks was a psychologist in Sacramento, the capital city of California. He was also president of a comuter airline, Skymark Airlines, with no connections to the Japanese airline of the same name.

Alvin Mark's goal was to break Sheila Scott's record around the world eastbound, which was set in 1966 with an average speed of 59.01 km/h. Marks achieved his goal with a record speed of 118.20 km/h. He had made an earlier attempt in 1967 with an Helio Courrier ( high wing and fixed gear) but had been forced to abandon the flight following an electical failure in Karachi.

For this record attempt, Marks used a Cessna 210 Centurion, registration N942SM, christened Semper Fly III. He gained 25 hours over and above his flight plan by flying two legs in the one day : Tehran to Karachi and Karachi to New Delhi . A total of more than 2900 km.

Marks took off from Sacramento on April 3, 1969 flying to Wichita in Kansas, and on to Hamilton in Bermuda. The next stops were Santa Maria in the Azores ; Madrid (Spain), Athens (Greece), Tehran (Iran), Karachi (Pakistan), New Delhi (India), Bangkok (Thailand), Singapore, and Manila (Phillipines). Flying over the Pacific Ocean, Marks flew from Aguana on the Island of Guam to Wake Island, and finally to Honolulu in Hawaii, and then the long Pacific crossing to his departure point in Sacramento. He arrived home on April 16, 1969.

Total time : 13 days 22 hours. The record was broken with an average speed of 118.20 km/h. A total of 14 records were achieved between Sacramento and the subsequent stops en route to Bangkok, and then from the next stop to Sacramento. These types of cumulative records are difficult to break and thus these records are held for longer periods than those which go from 'point to point'. The records can be seen on the "Data" page.