A great-grandfather of six from Middlesex County is finishing up a jaw-dropping aviation feat, just five months shy of his 90th birthday.Ed Galkin and his copilot are set to return to Central Jersey Regional Airport around noon Sunday, concluding a 37-day, 8,800-mile journey highlighted by two crossings of the Atlantic Ocean and 15 stops in 11 nations.“It’s been an incredible voyage,” Galkin told CBC News Canada on Thursday while in Newfoundland.Galkin has flown four times around the world with copilots...
A great-grandfather of six from Middlesex County is finishing up a jaw-dropping aviation feat, just five months shy of his 90th birthday.
Ed Galkin and his copilot are set to return to Central Jersey Regional Airport around noon Sunday, concluding a 37-day, 8,800-mile journey highlighted by two crossings of the Atlantic Ocean and 15 stops in 11 nations.
“It’s been an incredible voyage,” Galkin told CBC News Canada on Thursday while in Newfoundland.
Galkin has flown four times around the world with copilots, most recently in 2022, all in the same single-engine plane the retired dentist purchased in 1977 and is using on his current adventure.
He and his 72-year-old copilot, Peter Teahen of Iowa, were in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Saturday. Their Sunday morning return flight to the Hillsborough airport is expected to take 2 1/2 hours.
His latest adventure is serving as a fundraiser for Rotary International’s global polio eradication effort, according to the organization. It is being called, “Circle the Atlantic: Flight To End Polio.”
Galkin and Teahen took off from the Hillsborough airport Aug. 30. They traveled to Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Poland, France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal and Canada.
Galkin was born in Newark, grew up in Hoboken and has been a licensed pilot since 1970. He said he has been living in the same house in Edison since 1968. He retired from his dental practice in Woodbridge in December 2020.
Galkin and his wife, Bobbie, celebrated their 65th anniversary on Aug. 27. They have two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
“Luckily, I’m still staying healthy, and I intend to fly until I’m not healthy. Hopefully, it’ll be a bunch more years of flying,” he told the radio station in Canada.