Maine aviator plans to set another solo record

As Charles Mack turns 70 today he has taken the time — but just a little, mind you — to reflect on where the past couple of years have led him. But mostly, he thinks about tomorrow.

Summers have proved to be a busy time of year for the Millinocket-born aviator, who this year will celebrate the anniversaries of a handful of his flying records as he looks ahead to tackling another feat — flying solo and non-stop over the South Pole.

Come July 30, it will have been two years since Mack began his first solo flight across “the pond” when he piloted his fuel-burdened light plane non-stop across the Atlantic. While retracing the route of Charles Lindberg has become commonplace among aviation enthusiasts, Mack, a former World War II fighter pilot, a few days later became the first to fly back along the route of two French pilots, Charles Nungesser and Francis Coli, who were believed to have crashed in woods near Machias.

But the New York-to-Paris trip was only the beginning for Mack, who also worked in the Nixon White House and is a former professor of aeronautical engineering at San Jose (California) State University. Since that trip, he went on to set four additional world flying records.

Less than a year later, Mack once again packed himself into his single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza A-36 for his most difficult recreational trip, flying in June 1989 from Barrow, Alaska, to Helsinki, Finland, becoming the first to cross the North Pole solo.

It was during that trip that he fought wing ice and had to use a gyrocompass — a “rigged-up sun dial” — to keep on track because the normal compass was rendered useless near the pole. Just in case, his equipment included a high-powered rifle — for the polar bears.

He went from there to Paris and then to Iceland, setting his second world record of the trip. His third came during the trip back to Bangor, when he touched down at General Aviation in the early evening of July 17, 1989, and emerged, sporting a weary grin and a Mae West life preserver.

Although he has yet to voluntarily spend 20 or so hours in a Yugo-sized cockpit this year, Mack has been busy collecting the rewards of his trips.

This March he was formally presented his world record certificates by the National Aeronautical Association during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., and both Hickory, N.C., and Hollywood, Fla., where he has homes, held Charles Mack days. He also has traveled extensively, telling civics groups, gatherings of students, and fellow aviators of his exploits.

Never one to let any dust settle, Mack already is contemplating the flight over the South Pole, something he has considered since he landed in Bangor a year ago.

The engine of his Bonanza is about ready for an overhaul, he said Monday, and a healthy engine is essential for what would likely be a 40-hour trip from Perth, Australia, to Chile, some 5,500 nautical miles.

To tackle this, Mack would need 200 gallons of fuel — which would weigh about 1,200 pounds — and would be stored about everywhere in the plane that something else is not. Mack himself would have to move the pilot’s seat and gauges from the left of the plane to the right.

With such a load weighing down such a small plane, takeoffs are the most difficult part of the trip — everyone since Lindberg has had trouble lifting from the ground when burdened with so much fuel. To get himself in the air, Mack would need a runway of more than the 6,000 feet and would fly near the surface of the ocean for a few hours until his load lightened somewhat.