A PILOT will swap his cockpit for a Land Rover in an attempt to drive 10,000 miles from London to Cape Town.

Father-of-two Chris Rawlings, from Shilton, near Carterton, will join a crew of six driving day and night through 20 countries and across three continents to try to beat the record of 13 days and eight hours.

They are hoping to raise for £100,000 for the services’ charity Help For Heroes, founded in 2007, which supports wounded servicemen.

As a warm-up last week, the 38-year-old and his team beat Sir Stirling Moss’s 1952 record drive across Europe – by just 50 minutes.

The team covered 15 countries from Oslo to Lisbon, where they met Sir Stirling celebrating his 80th birthday, in 89 hours and nine minutes, driving over four mountain passes, including the 7,400 ft Julier Pass in the Swiss Alps.

Mr Rawlings said he was really excited about his forthcoming African adventure and confident of beating the record.

He said: “We will be going through the European winter, where there will be ice and rain. Then we will be going through to Africa where it will be their summer. We are going to do all four seasons in two weeks.

“I am very excited, I am wondering what challenges we will face.”

The record for driving from London to Cape Town was set in 1963 by Eric Jackson, now 85, in a Ford Cortina GT.

Mr Rawlings, a commercial pilot, and the two-vehicle team will set off for South Africa on January 6.

Although he has had no formal training as a mechanic, he said he picked up a great deal of knowledge from his grandfather, who was a mechanical engineer.

He said: “We will rotate between driving, navigating and sleeping and will just stop for fuel.

“We will eat boil-in-the-bag food, which we pack around the engine, so when we stop for fuel we re-fuel ourselves.”

He added: “Personally, I don’t know anybody that has been injured, but I have plenty of friends and friends of friends who have been to Afghanistan and Iraq – the charity strikes a chord.”

Mr Rawlings first met expedition leader Mac Mackenney when they trained together in RAF Swinderby, near Lincoln, 19 years ago. They both left to pursue different careers but kept in contact.

witney@oxfordmail.co.uk To sponsor the men, go to justgiving.co.uk/ maxadventure To find out more about Help for Heroes, visit helpforheroes.co.uk