The pair, Reigo Randmets and Andrus Kõresaar, had as a destination not a big east coast city, but instead Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in time for the large-scale annual aviation fair that takes place there in late July.

But there was plenty to see before they reached the badger state, and naturally Randmets and Kõresaar had to land from time to time before reaching their final destination, and again when flying home to Estonia.

"This is certainly a great challenge for private pilots like us, and you could say also a dream. Flying across the pond in a small aircraft is not an everyday thing. This flight trip, as we refer to it, does not mean only the stretch from Tallinn to America, but in between there were a lot of small airfields where we landed," said Randmets, whose day job is in construction.

Comfortable flight stretches were in the two-to-three hour range, meaning that the pair had to fly over as much land as possible, for instance stopping off in Norway, and Iceland. Their plane, a Piper Cheyenne I (Callsign: T7-ISA), has a greater range than that however. "This aircraft's capability is much greater, with it you can fly up to six hours. And this aircraft in broad terms flew about 500 kilometers per hour," he explained.

A long-range flight like this could be likened to a road trip thought through on a computer. "In general we knew by what date we wanted to get and where. We made a plan for each day – we started in Tallinn, then stop off in Norway, then in Iceland and perhaps stay overnight. But when starting out in the morning, it's not worth booking a hotel at the destination with full certainty, because it may turn out completely differently," Kõresaar, who works in architecture, noted.

Small tweaks needed to be made on the way and on the return journey, even as the basic plan is laid out beforehand. "Some other places may be more beautiful and better; the weather may be better there. For example, on the way back we planned to go to Reykjavik, in Iceland, but we saw that it was cloudy there and instead stayed on the other side of Iceland, basking in the sunshine. When flying an aircraft, there is that leeway to change the destination," Kõresaar added.

Tech advances have made the transatlantic flight, first made over a century ago, not only more comfortable but also easier to navigate.

"Nowadays you no longer need a separate navigator as in the past. Someone who would calculate and look at maps like a cutting sheet, to see that, now, I go along this dashed line. The computer does all that for you, while within European airspace you make the plan in an app, send it to Europe's Eurocontrol, and then you get an immediate answer whether it is okay or not to go ahead then, or to go a little later," Kõresaar went on.

Randmets admitted that an even bigger dream than America itself was to see Greenland. "Greenland was fantastic and I want to go back there right away, with or without an aircraft," he admitted.

And it seemed like the next long-distance flight might not be too far off. "With flying it's like this, after each flight, naturally you are happy when you have landed safely, yet as soon as you get in the car and drive home from the airport, you want to set off again," Randmets observed.

The Oshkosh air show itself was attended by 700,000 visitors, with 10,000 aircraft from 90 countries taking part.

(Click on the video player below for footage of the plane and journey).

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