Fancy going flying in a flex-wing open cockpit microlight? To Iceland, across 600 miles of cold North Atlantic sea? Trev and Dave are planning to do just that
18 March 2026
There are, broadly speaking, two types of flying adventure.
The first involves a comfortable touring aircraft, a decent autopilot and a civilised lunch somewhere in France. The second involves pointing something faintly improbable at a large expanse of cold ocean and hoping your planning, your engine, and your nerve all hold together.
Trev Lee and Dave Bromley have chosen the second option.
In summer 2026, the Leicestershire-based pair intend to fly their open-cockpit flexwing microlights from Deenethorpe Aerodrome to Iceland. Not around it, not near it, but properly to it, via Scotland and the Faroe Islands, in aircraft more commonly associated with sunny evenings and grass strips than the North Atlantic.
And then, having got there, they plan to turn around and do it all again.
The headline figure is simple enough: two 600-mile sea crossings.
The reality is rather more involved.
At typical flexwing cruising speeds of around 75 to 80mph, each leg could take the best part of nine hours. That’s nine hours exposed to the elements, nine hours of engine note as your constant companion, and nine hours of very little beneath you except the North Atlantic.
It is, one suspects, not the sort of trip where you casually reach for a flask and admire the view.
This is not, it should be said, a spontaneous lapse in judgement.
In 2023, Lee and Bromley flew to the North Cape in Norway – well inside the Arctic Circle – covering nearly 5,000 miles across 18 countries and raising close to £9,000 for Prostate Cancer UK.
That expedition involved its own share of “character-building” weather and logistical complexity, but Iceland raises the stakes considerably. The distances are longer, the diversion options fewer, and the consequences of getting it wrong… more final.
To their credit, this is not being approached with bravado alone.
The pair have invested in the sort of equipment you hope never to use: personal locator beacons, thermal dry suits, emergency air systems, and ditching training.
Their aircraft, too, have been adapted for the task, including additional fuel capacity — up to 165 litres — to stretch the range into something approaching “plausible”.
Between them, they bring substantial experience: Bromley with around 1,000 hours and 75,000 miles in microlights, Lee with over 750 hours and 50,000 miles.
Which is reassuring, because this is not a trip on which one would want to be learning.
As with their previous expeditions, the approach on the ground will be simple: camp where possible, shelter where necessary, and carry only what’s essential.
The schedule itself is fluid. The plan is to complete the journey in two to four weeks, but—as any pilot who has looked out at a stubborn North Atlantic weather system will tell you—plans are merely suggestions.
It is entirely possible they will spend days waiting for a suitable window, watching the same windswept runway and wondering if this was, in fact, a terrible idea.
All of this — every mile, every litre of fuel, every cold morning — is in aid of Prostate Cancer UK.
It’s a cause with stark numbers: 1 in 8 men affected and around 12,000 deaths each year.
The pair are aiming to raise more than £10,000, building on their previous success and helping to highlight a disease that remains both common and, too often, undetected.
Any surplus funds beyond the cost of the expedition will go directly to the charity.
Click here to contribute to the Iceland Flying Expo charity fund-raising.
