A HIGH-FLYING GOAL
Orlando pilot ready to begin her attempt to circumnavigate the globe to benefit ALS


JENNIFER PEREZ ORLANDO SENTINEL
CarolAnn Garratt and co-pilot Carol Foy plan to take off Tuesday night from Orlando.


By KATE SANTICH
Orlando Sentinel
Nov. 29, 2008, 10:31PM



Whenever CarolAnn Garratt shows off the single-engine airplane she plans to pilot around the globe in world-record time, the invariable reaction is: "But it's so tiny!"

Picture a Mini Cooper with wings. And less passenger room.

But Garratt, a 53-year-old Central Florida pilot, isn't worried about her plane, whose two rear seats have been removed to make room for extra fuel tanks. It has been around the world before, although at a more leisurely pace, on her 2003 solo trip to raise awareness of Lou Gehrig's disease, the inevitably fatal illness that claimed Garratt's mother in 2002.

Garratt isn't worried about her co-pilot, either. In 2006, Carol Foy of Spicewood, Texas, won an all-female air race across the United States. Foy, 52, has a cousin with Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS.

No, what keeps Garratt awake at night is India and the terrorist violence in Mumbai.

Though she is not planning a stop in the country, she does need to fly over it. And that means she needs a permit from the Indian government.

"If it looks like the permit is going to come through during the trip, we'll leave as scheduled," Garratt said Friday as she made final preparations. "If not, we'll wait another week or two. But we're going. I've put too much into this."

Takeoff is scheduled for 9 p.m. Tuesday from Orlando International Airport. If all goes as planned, they'll land again seven days, 12 hours and 43 minutes later.

"There are a million little things that can slow us down," Foy says. "I was starting to get real stressed out about it, and then a friend told me something I keep remembering — 'Just keep the pointy end forward and keep going.' It was good advice."

More than 18 months of planning and $15,000 of Garratt's own money are going into this trip. She's covering all expenses so the donations will go directly to the nonprofit ALS Therapy Development Institute.

Last trip, she raised $80,000 for the research institute, mostly from speaking fees and the sale of her book about the journey, Upon Silver Wings.

This time, she's shooting to raise at least $200,000.



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6139027.html