College Aviators Preparing for Global Educational Flight

CONTACT: Michael Cinelli

PHONE:
(713) 831-4794

E-MAIL: mcinelli@rice.edu

COLLEGE AVIATORS PREPARING FOR GLOBAL EDUCATIONAL
FLIGHT

Rice, Rochester University Students to Reach Out to Grade
Schoolers on Four Continents

Many Rice students bring cars to
Houston to get around the city during their college years.

But Chris Wall, a Hanszen junior, is bringing an airplane to
town, a craft he intends to fly around the globe as part of an effort to educate
school children about the state of the world’s environment and to share with
them his excitement about air travel.

Wall, a 21-year-old electrical engineering major at Rice,
and his partner, Dan Dominguez, a senior at the University of Rochester in
Rochester, N.Y., intend to depart next August in their twin-engine plane and fly
across four continents.

The world-girdling flight is part of an organization called
World Flight 2000, which the young men created to reach school children in more
than 20 countries through television, the Web and e-mail.

The main goal of World Flight 2000 is to promote
environmental awareness and share the dream of flying with young people, Wall
said. Another goal is to the break the world record for the youngest pilots to
circumnavigate Earth in an airplane.

”We’re doing it for the personal challenge,” Wall said. ”The
reason I wake up every morning and work on this plane is not because I get money
in my pocket. It’s because of the challenge.”

The challenge is awesome—flying a 40-year-old aircraft over
a 25,000