While most of us were sheltering in place last weekend, Robert DeLaurentis was out seeing the world and living his dream.
After an 11-hour solo flight, the San Diego pilot accomplished his personal mission impossible. He flew his highly modified Gulfstream Turbine Commander 900, "Citizen of the World," over the North Pole.
Thus he made good on his quest to circumnavigate the poles, a trip years in the planning. He is currently in Alaska and expects to arrive back in San Diego next month.
As anticipated, the trip didn't quite go as planned. It was most notably delayed by a lengthy grounding in Spain due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Throughout the sojourn, which began last Nov. 16, DeLaurentis has been faithfully posting photos and updates on his Facebook page.
He added a photo of his twin-engine plane just seconds after completing the North Pole leg, announcing to the world: "...feeling joyful in Fairbanks, Alaska... after a harrowing 11-hour flight from Northern Sweden over the True North Pole, the magnetic North Pole and the North Pole of Inaccessibility" (the Arctic ice furthest from any land mass).
Congratulations were quick to flow in from fans everywhere: "Wow. You did it!"... "Phenomenal experience" ... "Never had a doubt. Way to go"... "An epic journey!"... "Yahoo"..."Bravo"... "A true adventure" ... "You are an amazing inspiration..."
DeLaurentis' trip wasn't a flight of fancy but a well-executed mission. It was designed to further science through NASA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography on-board experiments, to boost STEM education awareness and to promote peace through interviews, speeches and meetings at stops along the route.
"The trip over the North Pole was very, very challenging." DeLaurentis told me during a phone interview Wednesday from Alaska. "I was scared to death. Many more systems failed over the North Pole than had failed over the South Pole."
He flew for 9.5 hours with no communications, leaving him unable to talk to air traffic controllers until his plane got within 60 miles of Alaska.
During his earlier flight over the South Pole, both of his GPS systems failed, so DeLaurentis was expecting that might happen again. And it did. For five long hours the systems worked only sporadically and, when they did, gave misinformation about the plane's direction.
He was unable to get an accurate heading. Plus, his autopilot system failed.
"I was on top of clouds so I had no visual reference," DeLaurentis said. "I could have flown in circles until I ran out of fuel." That 3,450-mile segment was "a long way to fly in that zone of confusion."
While $150,000 worth of technical equipment malfunctioned, DeLaurentis rejoiced that his $1,000 Apple iPad worked perfectly, and he relied on its Jeppesen application charts to map his course.
To compound problems, when he arrived at his Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, destination, the airport was fogged in, forcing him to continue on to Fairbanks.
"Luckily I had extra fuel," said DeLaurentis, who had equipped his turboprop with five extra fuel tanks. The one worry he didn't have was his fuel freezing. It gels at minus 47 degrees Celsius (minus 52.6 degrees Fahrenheit), he said, but in this time of global warming, the North Pole temperature didn't fall below minus 40 degrees Celsius. .
Was there joy in the moment of crossing the North Pole? "Maybe it was more like relief," he said. "At the time I was just thinking about getting to Alaska.... I went off course by 15 to 20 degrees. I thought, 'Why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself in this situation?'"
The North Pole navigation was the second hardest leg of his journey, superseded only by the South Pole — an 18-hour solo flight.
That leg "stressed me physically, emotionally and broke me open spiritually," he wrote early one morning as he contemplated his North Pole segment. "I've been away for seven months and it's looking like it will take another two months.... I'm fatigued, somewhat confident, and people still are calling me crazy — at least that last part is consistent."
DeLaurentis is a member of The Explorers Club and has taken flag No. 44 with him on this trip, considered a "flag expedition." His flag previously has been to the South Pole, North Pole, Mount Everest and the ocean floor of the Mariana Trench.
Cinematographers Jeremy LaZelle and Kristin Gates have been documenting his journey, which included stops on six continents and in 26 countries. He stayed with monks in a Spanish monastery, met a priest living in a cave for 50 years in Ethiopia and interviewed Zulu rangers and dog sledding champions.
Rough versions of the first six episodes of a 10-part docu-series, "Peace Pilot: To the Ends of the Earth and Beyond," are now being reviewed by the Discovery channel for possible airing.
Meanwhile, DeLaurentis has been working on his upcoming book by the same title whenever he gets a chance, documenting experiences while recall is fresh.
The pilot adventurer plans to land at Gillespie Field before mid-August (because his trip insurance runs out Aug. 15).
In upcoming months, he hopes to use the "Citizen of the World" as a traveling museum, transporting it to various settings around the country to share his experiences with school students and others who may also dream of doing the impossible some day.
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