By ANN Contributor Daniel Ford
Maurice Kirk, the 60-year-old British veterinarian flying his
Piper Cub around the world, was hospitalized in Japan on Friday
after a forced landing near the historic city of Kanazawa. His 1943
L-4 -- a liaison version of the Cub built for the U.S. Army -- was
badly damaged in the landing.
The Cub's engine lost power as Maurice was crossing a mountain,
as he told the story in a phone call to his wife in Wales. The only
open area proved to be a playing field with children, so he made a
downwind landing on a road under construction. According to
Japanese police, the light plane hit parked vehicles and was badly
damaged. The pilot was bent but unbroken, and doctors had him in
casts because of sprains to his neck and right ankle.
Maurice had spent two weeks on the far-north island of Hokkaido,
hoping for a 30 mph tailwind to boost him on the hazardous 19-hour
crossing to the Aleutian Islands. With the weather and the season
against him, he decided to pack it in -- literally -- and send the
Piper Cub to Alaska in a box. Evidently he was heading south for
this purpose when he crashed.
The round-the-world trip began in 2001 when Maurice entered his
Piper Cub, called "Liberty Girl," in a London-to-Sydney air race.
Though disqualified on the first day for making an unauthorized
landing, he kept up with the pack by flying seven days a week,
catching up every Sunday while the other contestants took a day's
rest. In addition to that disqualifying landing in France, he
also made unauthorized landings in Egypt, India, Thailand,
Indonesia, and Australia, further alienating him from the race
officials while making him a hero to everyone else. He broke the
monotony by occasionally cutting the engine, skimming down to 20
feet above the ground, and shouting to woodcutters or fishermen:
"Hi! I'm on my way to Australia!"
He covered 14,000 miles in 28 days, spending 200 hours in the
air. That left Liberty Girl on the wrong side of the globe. Then
Maurice lost his veterinarian license because of repeated jousts
with the law. "He combines independence of spirit and a passion for
justice with a flaming temper and complete insensitivity to the
feelings of others," noted the Lords of the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council, denying his appeal. They also praised him as
"one of a small number of veterinary surgeons practising in Wales
who is willing to be called out any time of the day or night to a
sick creature.
"He will sometimes even use his own light aircraft to get there.
No animal has any ground for complaint against him. Mr. Kirk's
problem is with people."
Nothing daunted, Maurice turned his practice over to his wife,
Kirstie, and set out to bring the L-4 home by way of the United
States. He left Australia on April 28, tacking north through
Indonesia and the Philippines to Seoul, South Korea, where he
arrived on May 25. There he left Liberty Girl wrapped in blue
plastic tarps and went home to raise money and get permission to
enter China and Russia.
Frustrated in that -- the Russians expected him to install a
diesel engine because there's no avgas in Siberia -- he bypassed
them by turning east to Japan. The Piper Cub is outfitted with gas
tanks in the wings and overhead in the cockpit, plus several
20-liter jerry jugs in the front seat, in addition to the
factory-installed tank in front of the instrument panel.
Maurice is now hoping to find an American or Japanese angel to
help him rebuild the battered Cub.
(Dan Ford edits the Piper Cub Forum online and flies a 1946
J-3 with only 12 gallons of gasoline.)