WASHINGTON, DC – Captain Barrington Irving, the 24-year-old pilot who set two world records in June, 2007 to become the youngest pilot and the first person of African descent to fly solo around the globe, was presented with a Congressional Resolution at a briefing at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 12th at the U.S. Capitol building.
Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) and Congressman Kendrick B. Meek (D-FL) presented pilot Barrington Irving with a Congressional Resolution (H. Res. 661) for making history by becoming the youngest pilot and the first person of African descent to fly solo around the world.
The Resolution (H. Res. 661), passed unanimously by the U.S. House of Representatives on December 11, 2007, was introduced by U.S. Representatives Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) and Kendrick B. Meek (D-Miami), and encourages the pursuit of more initiatives like Irving’s nonprofit organization, Experience Aviation, Inc., which encourages youth and underrepresented groups to pursue careers in aviation.
“Barrington Irving is one of the greatest young heroes of our time,” remarked Representative Hastings. “His triumph demonstrates that if you reach for the sky, you truly can make it, and in turn, make history. The passage of this resolution is one of many initiatives to come that will reprioritize opportunities in aviation for our youth.”
“When the younger generation is looking for a role model and hero, they need to look no further than Barrington Irving,” said Representative Meek. “This young pilot proved that when you dream big dreams and work hard, the extraordinary is possible. I am honored to call Barrington Irving a constituent.”
Barrington Irving’s flight is now a part of aviation history. On his four-month, 30,000-mile “World Flight Adventure” beginning on March 23, 2007, Irving clocked more than 130 hours of flight time and made 27 stops that included the Azores, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Dubai, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan before he returned to the U.S. via Alaska. As he made his way back across the U.S., he was celebrated by sponsors, friends and students at public events in Anchorage, Seattle, Denver, Houston, and Mobile.
According to the Organization of Black Airline Pilots, there are only 674 African American pilots, 14 of them women, among the nation’s 71,000 pilots flying with major commercial, commuter and freight airlines.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in inner-city Miami, Irving says his purpose in making the flight was to inspire inner-city and minority youth, and other youth throughout the world, to consider pursuing careers in aviation and aerospace. He named his plane “Inspiration,” he said, “…because that’s what I want my historic venture to be for young people. They can look at me and realize that if I can achieve my dream, they can too.”
Irving himself was inspired at age 15 when a customer in his parents’ Christian bookstore, Jamaican airline pilot Captain Gary Robinson, asked him if he had ever considered becoming a pilot. The next day, Robinson took him on a tour of the cockpit of the United Airlines Boeing 777 he flew and the young man was hooked—he wanted to fly. He began by washing planes and working odd jobs to pay for flying lessons, turned down college football scholarships and enrolled in a local community college to study aeronautics. Soon he was awarded a joint Air Force/Florida Memorial University Flight Awareness Scholarship and transferred to FMU, where he excelled in academics and flight training courses. By age 19, he had earned his Private Pilot and Flight Instructor licenses and his Commercial and Instrument Ratings.
Irving’s aircraft, including state-of-the-art data programming with electronic charts and extended range fuel tanks, is evidence of his determination to achieve his dream of circling the world. In 2003, when no aircraft manufacturer would lend or lease him a plane, he asked aircraft component manufacturing companies to donate only the part they produced. With the help of a title sponsor, Miami Executive Aviation, Irving secured $300,000 in donated components, including tires, cockpit systems, seats, and the engine, and the result was a Columbia 400, the world’s fastest manufactured single-engine piston aircraft.
Irving also sees his mission as an educational one. In 2003, he founded Experience Aviation Inc. (EA), a nonprofit organization that provides flight simulator training and aviation career guidance to middle and high school students. He opened the first EA Learning Center in Miami in November, 2006, with the support of the Miami-Dade Mayor, School Board members, and other local officials and businesses. Students who attend the center are among the thousands worldwide who tracked Irving’s trip on Microsoft flight simulator programs and read his flight blog on his website, WWW.EXPERIENCEAVIATION.ORG.
“I wish I had a chance to bring every child tracking the flight on my adventure, but I will be carrying all their hearts with me in the plane,” Irving said when he left Miami. “This is what fuels me—having youth believe in what I can do, so they can also begin to believe in themselves.”
Irving is following in the tradition of Lindbergh, his heroes the Tuskegee Airmen, and his mentors Erik Lindbergh (grandson of Charles Lindbergh), Steve Fossett, and Dick Rutan, who supported his efforts to inspire youth as he joins the ranks of record-setting aviators.
Throughout the flight, Barrington stayed in contact with the title sponsors that helped make his dream a reality: Miami Executive Aviation; Teledyne Continental Motors; Chevron; Microsoft Flight Simulator; Avidyne; Universal Weather and Aviation; and Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners.
