Charity smashes flight simulator record

A charity that helps disabled people to learn to fly has successfully broken the Guinness World Record for the longest, non-stop flight in a simulator.

The new record, which involved 100 pilots flying 22,500 miles non-stop around the world, took 200 hours over ten days.

It's helped raise more than £100,000 for Blackbushe-based charity Aerobility, and saw the simulator "fly" across Europe, the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent, around the Pacific Rim before crossing the United States, the North Atlantic and finally returning to Blackbushe Airport.

Teams of volunteers manned a "Mission Control" 24 hours a day, among them NATS air traffic controllers from the Prospect trade union’s ATCO branch.