Carol Vorderman to fly around the world solo inspired by Amelia Earhart

Carol Vorderman to fly around the world solo inspired by Amelia Earhart

For the past two years, Carol Vorderman has spent her days gossiping and giggling alongside a gaggle of female friends.

Now, the star is swapping the comfort and security of ITV’s Loose Women panel for a terrifying solo expedition around the world.

Inspired by her aviation heroines, Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson, she has revealed she will embark on a daunting round-the-world flight.

Having studied the life and times of Amelia â€" the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic â€" fearless Carol, 52, will attempt to recreate, and complete, the American flier’s daring but doomed 1937 flight around the globe.

The popular TV host’s boyfriend, Graham Duff, a former Red Arrows Squadron Leader, will join her on the trip in a support aircraft.

Carol says: “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and I’ve got to the point in life where I just decided to do it.

“It has been my  dream for decades and if I don’t do it now, I never will. I’m totally obsessed with flying.

"I just love the freedom and the buzz... it is like another world when you’re up there. It’s incredibly exciting and I can’t wait... although there are some pretty terrifying bits along the way.”

Inspiration: Amelia Earhart

 

After developing an interest in aviation as a young girl growing up in North Wales, Carol went to Cambridge University to read engineering in an effort to get a job with British Airways.

But in 1982, after graduating and starting work as a junior civil engineer, Carol instead landed a job on Channel 4 show Countdown.

Over the next 26 years, as the maths ace became a household name, so her schoolgirl dreams took a back seat.

However, after meeting one-time military display flier Graham â€" known as Duffy â€" two years ago and going on a series of romantic aerial dates, the broadcaster’s desire to reach for the skies was kindled once more.

She started her training to learn to fly with her 21-year-old daughter Katie, during a trip to California last summer.< /p>

But it was only after breaking her nose in a freak fall earlier this year that Carol and Duffy began seriously plotting their “Big Project”.

Currently flying at least four times a week, she plans to secure her pilot’s licence in August before setting out on her spectacular adventure next year.

During the arduous 29,000-mile flight, Carol will be camping overnight in various airfield tents and taking in countries including Cuba, Mexico, Sudan, Malaysia and Pakistan.

She says: “When I broke my nose I couldn’t go to work for four weeks so we flew an awful lot and the bug just really, really bit.

“We started talking about it properly at that time, late March, and I sort of made the decision for something good to come out of something bad: my big project.

“It’s not like you just fly from one major airport to another â€" it’s one airfield to another, get the tent out the back and kip overnight, and then get back in again and s et off.

“I just can’t wait but I’ve got to become a very good pilot first, learning how to fly in all sorts of conditions and just put in the hours.

“So it’s push, push, push right now...”

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She and Graham have bought their own plane, a Diamond DA40 single engine craft with four seats.

“We’ve named her Sputts,” she laughs.

“She’s really sweet, gorgeous and goes at about 130-140 miles an hour, which is not particularly fast for a plane. People think it’s a really expensive hobby but it’s actually not.”

Chatting animatedly about her heroines â€" both of whom died, mid-flight, in unexplained circumstances â€" Carol is understandably nervous about taking on the challenge.

Pioneering flier Amy Johnson, from Hull, gained global fame when, in 1930, she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

She was killed during the Second World War in 1941, while transporting an RAF plane over the Thames Estuary.

Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and the first person to make a solo flight across both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans.

But on a flight around the world in 1937, Amelia was never seen again.

Her plane disappeared somewhere over the Pacific en route to Howland Island and she was declared dead on January 5, 1939, aged 41.

Despite the obvious dangers, Carol is confident that she can complete her mission.

She says: “Amelia and Amy were heroic women who believed in woman and machine as one. At a time when women were seen as pretty little things who needed only to be home-makers, they blazed their trails.

“Am I nervous? Well, there are some really frightening bits when you cross the Pacific â€" Amelia did it the long way over the equator.

“The Pacific more or less covers half the world so there are some legs where I’ll have to stay awake for 20 hours or more. It will be tough.

“But to quote Leonardo da Vinci: ‘For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.’”

In her usual attire: TV star Carol Vorderman

 

Carol spoke to ITV bosses last week and hopes to work her role on Loose Women around the trip.

She explains: “I’ve asked to reduce my days on Loose Women because I want to fulfil this lifelong dream of flying around the world, following Amelia Earhart.”

Last night a spokeswoman for ITV said: “Carol is a fantastic Loose Woman and we will be supporting her all the way on her forthcoming challenge.”

Since dating good-looking Duffy, a former Iraq War fighter jet pilot 14 years her junior, the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain host has certainly gained a new spring to her towering, Louboutined step.

However, determined to carry out her daunting flight entirely alone, Graham, 38, will accompany her on the trip â€" from some distance behind.

"Duffy will fly the support plane,” she says, chatting from the Isle of Man where she flew into from Bristol yesterday to watch the TT racing action. “I’ve always wanted to fly, to be a pilot.< /p>

“I went from a comprehensive school in North Wales a year early at age 17 to Cambridge â€" in the days when comprehensive kids never got into Cambridge â€" to read engineering because it was the best way to convince British Airways to take me as a trainee pilot because, at that time, the RAF wouldn’t take women pilots.

“But in 1981, the year I graduated, British Airways closed down their training school because of the
oil crisis and I was left stranded. I was bereft.

“But a year later I ended up on Countdown.

“But I never, ever gave up on my dream. I just can’t believe it’s now finally happening...”