CHANDIGARH: Ravi Bansal, my class fellow in engineering college, is the only person of Indian origin to fly solo around the world in his single engine plane world for cancer awareness and raised Rs. 1.5 crore for cancer and general hospital in his home town Ambala Cantt talked about this adventurous journey.

He said it was a tribute to his sister-in-law Sneh Bansal, who was instrumental in bringing him up, and she died of cancer and the mission was a humble contribution to the people of the land of his birth.

 Bansal after graduating from engineering college Allahabad shifted to USA in 1971. He did his Doctorate in mechanical engineering. During study time he got interested in flying and l got his pilot license in 1977.

Bansal shared his experiences and cancer problem to the students of PEC Chandigarh, IIT Ropar and NIT Kurukshetra. It has been a dream of mine for years to do this Round the World trip and the best part of his trip was to return to his hometown of Ambala where he was allowed to land at the restricted Air Force Base, said Bansal

The six-week solo flight around the world went right on schedule, despite some glitches with the plane. He flew more than 26000 miles and had to acquire numerous documents for each trip, custom clearance and insurance. If you have with single engine plane and you are flying over land you can usually land safely on a road or field but when you fly around the world, 70% of times you are flying over the water.

When you fly in a commercial plane you are up at 35000 feet bit I was flying at 10000 feet and saw numerous volcanoes just couple of thousand feet below and many of them were active while others were dormant, said Bansal. The scariest part was flying over the northern Atlantic from Canada to Greenland. But for me, the journey showed me how beautiful and how fragile, the geography of our planet is.