Ryan Campbell, 19, aims to become youngest pilot to fly solo around the world

Ryan Campbell is halfway through his round-the-world journey.

The 19-year-old Australian aviator is circling the globe solo in his single-engine Cirrus SR22, hoping to set the record for the youngest person to do so.

He recently completed a 14-hour non-stop flight across the Pacific.

"It was hard being in an airplane that long," Campbell told the Associated Press. "It was hard to be the only one that can make those decisions as to whether you should keep going."

Campbell stopped for a layover in Labrador, his midway point, on Thursday.

"It's a crazy, out-there dream that I didn't think was achievable and for a whole number of reasons," Campbell, who completed his first solo flight at the age of 15, told CBC News on the airstrip at Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Even on his layover, Campbell couldn't avoid flight. He took a low-flying tour over Labrador's wilderness in another plane.

"I live and breathe aviation," he said. "I could spend all day in an airplane if I could [so] the experience to go fly in a float plane in Canada was fantastic and was something that, for an Aussie, was a very out-there thing to do."

On Friday, he left Canada for Iceland.

Campbell set out on his solo-flight adventure from Wollogong, New South Wales, Australia on June 30, the day after 21-year-old Californian pilot Jack Wiegand set the record for youngest aviator to fly solo around the world.

If his trip is successful, Campbell will return to Wollogong on September 7, four months before his 20th birthday.

Wiegand doesn't mind giving up his record so soon: "Records are meant to be broken."

Campbell hopes to inspire other young people to consider careers in aviation.