Johnson: “It wasn't smoothest landing I’ve ever seen, but the old saying is what? Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.”

[sound of footfalls, propellor shutting down]

Out on the runway, Jack Wiegand unfolds himself from the cockpit.

Johnson: “Welcome back!”
Wiegand: “Thank you!”
Johnson: “Been a while, huh?”
Wiegand: “Been too long. I’m assuming you want to see my passport?”

As Johnson fills out paperwork, Wiegand takes the opportunity to stretch his legs.

Wiegand: “This was a long flight. This was a looong flight. I'm glad it's over.”

It took Wiegand close to 12 hours to make the flight from Kurshiro, Japan, to Unalaska, even with 60 to 70 knot tailwinds. He says the original plan was to stop in Adak, where the community had arranged a welcome party for him, but the cloud ceiling was too low, and he had to continue on to Unalaska, which posed some challenges of its own.

Wiegand: “Yeah, the most difficult approach I’ve done in my life.”

Wiegand say he was running low on fuel by the time he reached Unalaska, so instead of doing a standard approach to the runway, he tried to fly in directly through the clouds.

Wiegand: “Ended up on the other side of the... I guess it would have been over here... in the other bay, then I had to come back. It was just kind of a little bit of a mess getting in here. But I guess I’m here now, so it’s okay.”

That wasn’t the first challenge Wiegand encountered on his 60-day journey around the world. In India, he wound up in the middle of a huge, unforecast thunderstorm while trying to make his way into Calcutta.

Wiegand: “You’re getting blown up and sucked down. What I ended up having to do was find a little pocket in the clouds, it was a little hole in the clouds and made really, really steep turns, and just descended right down through the clouds and I just popped right out and I was underneath all of it.”

In Japan, Wiegand ran into a different kind of problem -- bad weather kept him grounded in Kushiro for almost three weeks, giving him plenty of time to think about the Aleutian crossing that lay ahead.

Wiegand: “This flight today was bigger than anything I ever wanted to take on. I mean I was dreading this flight. This flight was over water the entire way, and over water that if you crash in, for whatever reason, you’re most likely not going to survive.”

But survival wasn’t the only thing on Wiegand’s mind while he waited out the weather in Japan. He had been hoping to make it home in time for his 21st birthday, but was stuck in Kushiro instead.

Wiegand: “Which wasn’t very exciting, because the drinking age in Japan is 20, so I could already do that. I mean I never really had any exciting 21st birthday. But that will yet to be celebrated.”

And celebrations there were. When Wiegand landed in Fresno on Saturday, he was met with water cannons and well-wishers at the airport, and plenty of offers to buy him a cold beer.

You can find more about his journey at his website, www.solo2013.com.