WHEN the Flying Scotsman pulled in to Glasgow yesterday, there was no soot, or steam, or ceremony. Just an ebullient teddy bear-shaped man in a tartan suit.
The owner of the unusual livery might have the potential to be something of a classic loco himself. In 1996, Colin MacKinnon was the first person to pilot a microlight aircraft solo across the United States, clad head to foot in a specially made tartan Goretex flying suit.
Using around #7500 of his own money, he flew from the Gulf of Mexico to Kittyhawk, North Carolina - the site of the Wright brothers' first powered flight - then across the southern states to California.
He described being attacked by a pack of dogs in Florida as he checked an airstrip for rabbit holes. In North Carolina, he was dropped 500 ft by turbulence from the Appalachian mountains. And in west Texas he found himself trying to stake down his aircraft during a thunderstorm as lightning bolts cratered the ground around him.
''My father said I was a little bit crazy, and a friend told me afterwards that he'd never expected to see me alive again, but it was definitely worth it.''
Yesterday the 37-year-old freelance journalist was in the more sedate surroundings of Waterstone's Glasgow store to launch On a Wing and a Prayer, his self-published account of the pioneering nine-week trip.
At his side was his trusty flying machine the Pink Panther. Complete with 32-foot wing span and a rear-mounted two-stroke 58 horsepower engine taken from a snowmobile, the Panther had been reconstructed inside the Sauchiehall Street shop.
A flyer since he was an RAF cadet, Mr MacKinnon decided to cross the US three years ago after cashing in his pension fund to buy a scrap of fabric from the world's first aircraft.
''It was just a grubby sheet of A4 with this thing stuck on it, but I thought it would be a good idea to take it for a flight back to Kittyhawk,'' he said.
''It was the chance of a trip of a lifetime. The longest microlight flight was 150 miles in one go, but usually I would stop every 10 miles and get a Coke. I was sightseeing really.''
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