Flying solo around the world requires more than courage. It demands preparation, technical knowledge, discipline, and the confidence to keep moving when the nearest safe landing point may be hours away. For Saudi pilot, entrepreneur, and former motorsport leader Mishaal Fahd Al-Sudairy, those qualities were built over decades. His story is not simply about adventure. It is about building, learning, and having the confidence to begin again.
Engineering Built the Foundation
Mishaal Al-Sudairy's career began far from the cockpit. He graduated from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals with a bachelor's degree in systems engineering, with studies that also included industrial engineering and operations research. He then worked as a civilian engineer with the Saudi military's maintenance corps from 1989 to 1992, including during the Gulf War period.
That engineering background remained relevant throughout his career. Running technology companies requires systems thinking. Organizing motorsport requires regulations, logistics, safety, and operations. Flying an aircraft demands checklists, navigation, risk management, and constant decision-making. Al-Sudairy would eventually move between very different industries, but the discipline behind them remained remarkably consistent.
“We have this limited lifetime, and I would like to make the best of it, experience as many things as I can, and enjoy it as much as I can. I think life is a gift, and the way to cherish a gift is to live it.”
Building a Business in Saudi Arabia's Technology Sector
After leaving his engineering role, Mishaal Al-Sudairy entered the private sector and built Automated Systems Establishment, a Saudi technology business focused on network integration, technical support, training, consulting, and IT services. He entered the software business during a period when licensed software was still competing with widespread piracy in the market. He chose to focus on original software and continued expanding into technology services and distribution.
His commercial interests also included Mishaal Al-Sudairy Office for Commercial Services, or MSO, which developed into a distributor for major international technology brands in Saudi Arabia. The business worked with brands including Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, and AMD and expanded its commercial reach as Saudi Arabia's technology market developed. In 2008, Saudi technology company Al-Falak Electronic Equipment & Supplies acquired 100% of MSO in a cash transaction.
The year 2008 also became a personal turning point for Al-Sudairy. After years of building businesses, he began to rethink how he wanted to spend the next stage of his life. It marked a shift in perspective that would eventually take him deeper into motorsport, exploration, and later aviation.
Helping Build Saudi Motorsport
Technology was only one part of Mishaal Al-Sudairy's journey. Cars and motorcycles had interested him for years. He competed as a driver before moving into sports administration, where his contribution became increasingly focused on building the structures surrounding the sport. Al-Sudairy became closely involved in the development of organized motorsport in Saudi Arabia. He helped advance the country's automobile and motorcycle sporting structure and became the first president of the Saudi federation responsible for automobile and motorcycle sport.
His leadership came during an important formative period for Saudi motorsport. The federation strengthened its relationships with international motorsport organizations and supported the development of competitions including the Hail International Rally and the Sharqia Rally.
Al-Sudairy also served in international motorcycle sport, including as a vice-president within the Asian motorcycle federation structure and as a member of an international motorcycle federation committee. His work took place years before Saudi Arabia developed into the global motorsport destination it is today. For Al-Sudairy, organized motorsport was also about more than competition. Formal events could provide safer environments for enthusiasts, develop Saudi capabilities, strengthen technical skills, and connect the Kingdom with international sporting institutions. That institution-building remains an important part of his contribution to Saudi sport.
Exploring the World on Two Wheels
After years of business and motorsport leadership, Al-Sudairy increasingly turned toward exploration. Motorcycles became one of his preferred ways to experience the world. His journeys have taken him through more than 80 countries, often through remote landscapes far beyond conventional tourism routes. They have included repeated rides through the Himalayas, journeys through Nepal and Tibet, and a motorcycle trip around Australia completed in 21 days.
“You see other people, other cultures, and you blend with these people. You learn from them, you eat their food, you stay with them and talk with them. It actually adds a lot.”
Photography and writing became natural extensions of this curiosity. He documented his motorcycle journeys through books, travel photography, and video. What began as personal documentation gradually became a way to share those experiences with a wider audience. And travelling across landscapes from the ground eventually inspired another question.
“While I was riding, I was always thinking: how would this look from above? What if I were a bird and could see these places from the sky? I think, as I matured, that became the idea of flying.”
Starting Again: From Wheels to Wings
The answer required Mishaal Al-Sudairy to become a beginner again. Prince Sultan bin Salman encouraged him to take his passion for exploration into aviation, challenging him to move “from wheels to wings.” In 2018, at around the age of 50, Al-Sudairy began formal flight training. He earned his private pilot licence in Denver, Colorado. He later completed instrument training in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, followed by multi-engine and commercial training in Bellingham, Washington.
Starting aviation later in life did not make the process easier. Flying demanded extensive theoretical study, technical training, examinations, practice, and discipline. It also meant accepting the unfamiliar position of being a beginner after decades of professional experience. For Al-Sudairy, however, beginning again was part of progress.
"For me, I don’t mind starting anything from the beginning. Life is cycles. You reach maturity, and then that means it is time for you to start something else."
Flying Solo Around the World in 27 Days
By 2021, Al-Sudairy was already putting those skills into long-distance practice. He flew from Al-Thumamah in Riyadh to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to participate in EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, one of the world's major aviation gatherings. The journey became an important step between learning to fly and taking on the much larger challenge of circumnavigating the world solo three years later.
The defining aviation achievement came in 2024, when Mishaal Al-Sudairy set out from Saudi Arabia aboard his Diamond DA42, Wings of Arabia, to circumnavigate the world alone. Over 27 days, he crossed the globe solo, navigating long stretches over the Pacific and Atlantic and landing at 30 airports along the way. The journey included 123 hours of flying and covered more than 21,000 nautical miles, taking him from Riyadh across multiple continents before returning to Al-Thumamah Airport.
Completing a solo circumnavigation demanded far more than endurance. Al-Sudairy had to manage weather, fuel, navigation, international clearances, aircraft performance, fatigue, and the risks of flying across some of the world's most remote regions. The achievement was later recognized with a Certificate of Achievement from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), marking one of the most significant milestones of his aviation journey.
Turning a Global Flight Into a Story
The flight did not end when Wings of Arabia returned to Riyadh. Mishaal Al-Sudairy continued documenting the experience and transformed the journey into another form of storytelling. His book, Flying Around the World Solo in 26 Days, captured the experience of navigating countries, oceans, weather systems, airports, and long periods alone in the cockpit. It followed a pattern that had already defined his motorcycle journeys.
Al-Sudairy does not only travel. He documents. Books preserve the experience through words. Photography captures landscapes and moments. Video gives audiences another way to follow the journey. This ability to convert experience into content has also helped build a distinctive personal brand around exploration, aviation, photography, and Saudi identity.
Seeing Saudi Arabia Differently From the Sky
Despite travelling across the world, some of Al-Sudairy's most meaningful exploration takes place at home. He regularly flies across Saudi Arabia while photographing and filming landscapes that many people never see from the ground. His flights have captured deserts, mountains, coastlines, volcanic fields, heritage locations, geological formations, and smaller communities across the Kingdom.
At periods of high activity, his flying schedule has reached around 12 flights per month. But the purpose gradually became bigger than personal photography. Mishaal Al-Sudairy wants more people to discover Saudi Arabia beyond its largest cities. Rural communities, small towns, heritage sites, mountain ranges, deserts, volcanic landscapes, and coastal areas tell other parts of the Saudi story. His aerial content gives audiences an opportunity to see those places from a completely different perspective. The aircraft becomes more than transportation. It becomes a platform for exploration and national storytelling.
“I want to introduce my country to my fellow citizens, so they come out of the cities. Saudi Arabia is not limited to Riyadh and Jeddah. There is so much to see and to know about our country.”
Adventure Built on Preparation
Mishaal Al-Sudairy's journey also offers an important distinction between adventure and recklessness. His experiences may involve crossing oceans, riding motorcycles through remote regions, or flying thousands of kilometres alone, but preparation remains central. Aviation in particular depends on procedures. Routes are prepared before takeoff. Aircraft systems are checked. Weather is evaluated. Navigation is programmed. Emergency scenarios are considered. Pilots reduce unnecessary workload on the ground so that their attention in the air can remain focused on operating the aircraft safely.
The same principle can be seen across Al-Sudairy's wider career. Ambition gives a person a destination. Preparation increases the chance of reaching it. That combination of curiosity and discipline helps explain how someone can move between entrepreneurship, motorsport, global motorcycle travel, and aviation without treating each new pursuit as an isolated adventure.
Building the Next Chapter
Mishaal Al-Sudairy’s journey shows that progress does not have to follow one path. From technology and motorsport to global exploration and aviation, each chapter built skills that strengthened the next. His story reflects qualities increasingly important to Saudi Arabia’s transformation: entrepreneurship, lifelong learning, cultural curiosity, and the confidence to pursue new possibilities.
For young Saudis building careers in sport, technology, tourism, media, or business, the message is simple: keep learning, keep exploring, and stay willing to begin again. The next horizon may lead somewhere entirely new.
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