AFTER more than 20 years flying across the skies of Europe David Goode decided to take on his biggest challenge yet.

The South Oxford sculptor has just finished making his way across Spain in a paramotor, a propeller strapped to his back with a paraglider wing overhead.

He completed his journey of more than 500 miles yesterday and hopes it will help him raise £5,000 for Save the Children and turn his life-long passion for flying into a good cause.

He said: “I have been flying for about 20 years now. I started off as a skydiver and then I took up microlites and I flew all over Europe in those.

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“Then I traded it in for a paramotor because I missed the adventure and I thought I might like to do something adventurous with it.

“I used to live in Spain and I speak Spanish and then someone suggested that I should do it as a charitable thing and I thought ‘why not?’”

The father-of-three’s journey took him from Suances, near Santander on Spain’s north cost to Castell de Ferro on the south coast, which lies between Malaga and Almeria.

He said: “I can do about three hours in one hop. I have been lucky with refuelling so far because I have landed beside petrol stations.

“I came over on the ferry from Portsmouth on Tuesday and arrived on Wednesday in Santander and then I went to Suances.

“I got up early the next day and took off from the beach and flew to my first stopping point and stayed the night and then went off again.”

Mr Goode completed his journey more quickly than he expected due to good weather conditions and was hopefully he can add to the £2,000 he has raised so far.

He said: “Save the Children have been really great, they have given me some tabards to wear which I can use to help explain to people what I am doing and what it is all about.

“I have always had a love of flying since I was a kid and as soon as I was able to I wanted to get airborne myself.

“It is a nice sense of freedom and on long trips it is an amazing sense of adventure to be able to head off in any direction you want.

“This is the first time I’ve done it for charity but although my £5,000 target might be a bit ambitious I’m still hopefully.”

To donate visit: justgiving.com/vueloparalosninos

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