World Records Set By Eurobond Adhesives Sponsored Pilot

Today at 11:30 GMT young aviator Zara Rutherford completed her global adventure, sponsored by Kent-based Eurobond Adhesives. In doing so, she has entered the Guinness Book of World Records, having set no less than three Records at the same time:

1. At 19yrs old, Zara is the youngest female pilot to circumnavigate the globe by aircraft, solo

2. She is the youngest person to circumnavigate solo in a microlight aircraft.

3. Zara is also the first Belgian to have circumnavigated the world flying solo.

In order for her flight to qualify, Zara had to include one pair of antipodals (points diametrically perfectly opposite to each other on the globe). On 3rd September 2021 she visited the first antipodal: Quibdo, Colombia (the wettest city on Earth). On 21st December she visited the second antipodal: Jakarta, Indonesia.

Commenting on Zara's achievement at the end of her adventure, Eurobond Adhesives Managing Director Simon Dearing, a keen aviator himself, says Zara is an inspirational role model to all young women. She has achieved her dream, overcoming her fears, enduring extremely hostile and dangerous environments, flying over Californian wild fires, active volcanoes in Iceland, typhoons in Indonesia, dodging volatile North Korenn airspace and has remained focussed throughout. As one of her sponsors we are so proud to have played a small part in her realising her dreams. We hope that other young women will be inspired to challenge themselves and follow careers in technology and science.

Eurobond Adhesives shares much in common with Zara: embracing cutting edge technology, pushing boundaries and challenging science in our case to produce some of the best high performance bonding solutions in the world, that have been tested and proven in the most demanding of environments. 70% of the Eurobond workforce is female and everyone in the company has been keenly following her world record attempt. What next for Zara? Well, she will be off to university this year. After that she has set her sights a little higher and hopes one day to become an astronaut.

Some interesting facts and figures:

Zara flew around the world in a Shark Aero aircraft, one of the fastest ultralight aircraft in the world (up to 300 km/h). It was designed in the Czech Republic and manufactured in Slovakia

Completing her world record, Zara has flown a total distance of 52,080.3 km (28,121 nautical miles)

She has spent a total time of 200 hours in the air and completed 71 takeoffs and landings.

Longest flight over land was: 2000 km (1080 nautical miles)

Longest flight over water was: 1861 km (1005 nautical miles)

Highest altitude flown: 4200 meters (13,800 ft), over Greenland

Continents visited: 5

Countries visited: 41

Highest temperature: +32 (Jakarta, Indonesia)

Lowest temperature: -34 (Magadan, Russia)

Zaras Mission:

With her flight, Zaras aim was to encourage and inspire girls and young women to pursue their dreams and reduce the gender gap in aviation as well as in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).