Blind pilot breaks sound barrier

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Miles Hilton-Barber piloted an English Electric Lightning, climbing to 50,000ft in under two minutes.

He and a sighted co-pilot flew upside down in the skies over Cape Town, South Africa, reaching speeds of up to 1,100mph.

The 59-year-old from Duffield, Derbyshire, said: "I am celebrating at the moment. I am one of the happiest and most fulfilled blind men in the world. The rush was incredible. It was just wonderful.

"We were climbing vertically. Can you imagine flying a standard aircraft vertically? Of course, I couldn't see anything but my co-pilot told me that when we flying upside down at 50,000ft you could see the curve of the Earth.

"We were flying at around one-and-a-half times the speed of sound."

Mr Hilton-Barber, who travels the world giving motivational speeches, had hoped to join the air force at the age of 18 when he lived in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. But he failed a medical test because of poor eyesight and at the age of 21 he went blind due to a hereditary eye disease.

The sponsored record attempt was a bid to raise £50,000 for the charity Seeing is Believing, he said.

Mr Hilton-Barber said: "I am doing it all to raise money for blind children in the developing world. There are 37 million blind people in the world today, and 28 million could see again ... if the money was available."

Mr Hilton-Barber was the first blind person to pilot a high-speed catamaran, the first to fly a jet fighter and the first to fly a micro-light across the English Channel.