About the Book
Low Again is Peter Wilson's fascinating coffee table book celebrating the wonderful people and places of his incredible antipodal circumnavigation by helicopter with Andre de Freitas in 2024. Andre became the first Brazilian to circumnavigate by light helicopter. Peter became the only person to have circumnavigated by light helicopter through antipodes twice. Together they travelled through 34 countries to complete the journey of about 34,000 nautical miles/ 63,000 kilometres in 106 days.
Andre and Peter set the fastest official1 circumnavigation by helicopter through antipodes landing at the twinned cities of Bichura (UIUA) in Russia and El Calafate (SWAC) in Argentina. Two pilots, VFR, 01 October 2024. 1The record is ratified by the FAI.
Andre and Peter cycled five times through Temperate, and twice through Arid, Tropical, Continental, and once through Polar climate regions. They witnessed much of the east and west coasts of the Americas and the Steppes of Europe above the Alps and Asia while skirting above Mongolia and China. They crossed the Caspian Sea (largest lake in the world) and Lake Baikal (deepest freshwater lake in the world) experiencing the warm welcomes and stunning geography of Turkey, Georgia, the Stans and Siberia including Kamchatka. From squiggly rivers to conical volcanoes to conurbations of all types they were privileged to enjoy the beautiful world in which we live.
The route took them through the following 34 countries including: Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Grenada, Sint Maarten, Dominican Republic, Turks & Caicos, Bahamas, USA, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Faro Islands, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mexico, EL Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The antipodes were Bichura in Russia followed by El Calafate in Argentina. The start and finish point of the journey was Jaguaruna, Santa Caterina, Brazil.
For Peter this route combined the beauty of his previous Round Latin America and Round the World routes. However, by taking the northerly route through Europe, Turkey, and entering Russia from the Stans the pilots saw the beauty of this region including Lake Baikal and Kamchatka whilst able to avoid the monsoonal weather of the southerly route.
Low Again is presented in gorgeous spreads celebrating the journey, their preparations for long-range flying, the people who helped make them happen, the challenges they faced with weather and earth's breath-taking scenery seen from their helicopter vantage point.
About the Author :
Peter Wilson's is a 'journey of learning by doing', with a passion for living within Earth's means and, in recent years, a determination to make an individual difference. He grew up in Africa, discussing the origins of Earth with his father and his contemporaries (geologists, palaeontologists and physicists). He was fascinated by Africa, the human migration within it, and the human migration from it.Peter trained as an engineer and went on to understand business and how to solve problems for people including energy, housing and healthcare. He travelled widely and liked helping people to help themselves, starting his own businesses to pursue these goals.Meanwhile, the pressing problems of the Anthropocene were being researched scientifically with better instruments and information. Peter continued to feed his passion for human geography and what is now called 'sustainable development, ' having great discussions with scientists, his father, his contemporaries and their generations of students. Finally, after the sale of his businesses in 2014, Peter could focus his resources on raising awareness of the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development. He conceived his Three Journeys Round project and, combining his passion for flying and adventure, set about going to witness the world's issues for himself.In a Robinson R66 helicopter, Peter landed in 86 countries, travelling a total of 122,500 kilometres in 285 expedition-days on three remarkable, long-range aviation journeys. Planning from scratch was an enormous undertaking which afforded him the best platform to witness much of the world's stunning physical and human geography at first hand, visiting rare locations by helicopter. Consequently, he has also been able to help others prepare for their long-range flying projects, and he was immensely proud of Ruben Dias and Mischa Gelb (aka Pilot Yellow) when they completed their antipodal circumnavigation hot on his heals in 2018.Peter continues to work out how best to explain that there is no economic argument for maintaining extreme poverty and that capitalism needs to take account of Nature because it is not free.
