He spoke at Singleton High School about his journey   and how he grew from the experience. 

“If you have courage, desire and commitment you can achieve your dreams,” he said. 

“It doesn’t mean it will be easy there are plenty of ups and downs, but it will happen maybe different to how your thought it would, but it will happen.”  

Last year Ryan, at the age of 19, spent between 180 to 200 hours in the air over a period of  two months and one week achieving his goal. 

That was the easiest part though. 

The real challenge was the nightmare of planning the mammoth trip and how  to finance it. 

“I learnt quickly that you can’t achieve anything if you don’t use goal setting, short and long term,” he said. 

 “You need to have the right attitude otherwise you will mentally defeat yourself. 

“You can’t say, ‘I’ll give it a crack’, it has to be a firm yes or a no, I would’ve  given up 100 times if I wasn’t committed.” 

After  planning the journey Ryan found out it would cost $250,000 in expenses and that’s before finding a safe plane to complete the journey in. 

He was promised a plane to fly in by several companies, but each time they backed away or there were engine problems.  

However he said was 100 per cent committed to his goal and with five weeks out from takeoff time he finally found a plane and modified it for the trip.  

There were scary encounters along the way and times when he had to make big decisions but the reward was worth it. 

Ryan was sponsored by Royal Newcastle Aero Club to talk at the high school and gave one student the chance to have an introduction to flying lesson.