PARAPLEGIC microlight pilot Dave Sykes has reached Saudi Arabia in his daring attempt to fly from York to Australia – but only after friends back home feared he had got into serious difficulties.

Dave, 43, a member of York Flying Club, took off from Rufforth Airfield on April 28 on a record-breaking bid to fly more than 11,600 nautical miles to Sydney to raise money for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Having flown across Europe to Cyprus, he reached Egypt earlier this week, and then set off on a seven-and-a-half hour flight of 493 miles from Luxor to Saudi Arabia, travelling at 9,000 feet.

Friends at the flying club and Dave’s ‘local’, the Tankard in Rufforth, have been tracking his movements throughout the flight through a tracking device, which regularly updates his location on his website, www.soloflightglobal.com

Flying club committee member Mike Poole said the signal was lost for almost two hours while he was in the middle of a three-and-a-half hour crossing over the Red Sea. “The tension was very intense,” he said. Fortunately, it then emerged Dave had landed safely in Jeddah.

Mike said he planned to head out over the desert yesterday, as Oman and Qatar were on his route to Pakistan. However, he had faced a frustrating 24-hour delay caused by bureaucracy, with immigration officials wanting a paper copy of clearance into the country from the British embassy.

He said Dave was now planning to make a very early start this morning with new batteries in his tracking device.

Dave, from the Dewsbury area, who lost the use of his legs after a motorcycle accident in 1993, has his wheelchair strapped to the microlight.

His journey is intended to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Amy Johnson’s achievement of being the first woman to fly solo to Australia in 1930.