Has this glorious eccentric finally crashed to earth? He was Oliver Reed's drinking pal - and now he's causing havoc around the globe. But now pilot Maurice Kirk has gone AWOL again

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For a retired English gent who has just crash-landed his plane in a field of goats in South Sudan, Maurice Kirk (pictured) looks remarkably chipper

For a retired English gent who has just crash-landed his plane in a field of goats in South Sudan, Maurice Kirk looks remarkably chipper.

His dishevelled appearance, and the sticking plaster on his shin, might hint that he's been through the mill a bit, but he seems quite pleased with himself.

There's no evidence that he's horrified at having found himself — wearing a pair of Crocs, no less — in a country where civil war is raging.

He certainly doesn't seem perturbed by the fact that one of the men surrounding him — in the same field where his damaged plane sits, minus a wheel by the looks of it — is carrying a machine gun.

These are the latest images that 72-year-old Maurice has sent back home from the African trip which his daughter Belinda, back in Bristol thinks (perhaps optimistically) might be 'his last great adventure'.

Often, when people of Maurice's vintage send photos home of their travels, they do so from a cruise ship, or from a golf terrace in some exotic clime. Not Captain Kirk, as his fans know him.

'He was never going to spend his retirement on a cruise ship,' says Belinda, a little wearily. 'This is more his thing.'

By 'this', of course, she means extreme adventuring, haring off across the world, leaving a trail of havoc in his slipstream.

In Maurice's case, such adventuring means emergency plane exits, becoming embroiled in diplomatic incidents and, frankly, behaving like James Bond's rather eccentric uncle, who may or may not have completely lost his marbles.

A week ago, Maurice, a retired vet, amateur pilot and one-time drinking buddy of the legendary hell-raiser Oliver Reed, hit the headlines (not for the first time) when he went missing taking part in an air rally in Africa.

The five-week long Vintage Air Rally, which involves vintage plane enthusiasts flying from Crete to Cape Town, recreating the glory days of pre-war aviation, is an oddly genteel affair, and an eye-wateringly expensive one.

Participants pay around £50,000 to take part, with fuel and plane running costs on top. Obligatory equipment, advises their website, includes 'a sleeping bag, full black tie and a beginner's guide to Swahili'.

Organisers became concerned, though, when Maurice's pride-and-joy, a 1943 Piper Cub, went missing somewhere in the skies over Ethiopia.

They'd already realised that allowing Maurice — a controversial figure in the aviation world — into their ranks might have been a mistake. After a few rows, one when he insisted on flying 'below camel level' over the desert, he was asked to withdraw. Concerns were also raised that his plane wasn't airworthy and that he didn't have the correct navigational equipment.

Unperturbed, however, when the team set off on the next leg of their journey, Maurice went, too — until he disappeared en route. A search and rescue was mounted. Maurice was international news.

There was some relief when he was found, safe and well, having crash-landed. He'd spent the night in the desert, sleeping under a wing.

Did he thank everyone profusely, hang up his goggles and resolve to head home, possibly to invest in a timeshare in Tenerife?

Police inspect a crashed light airplane on a round-the-world flight in Kanazawa city, Japan

No, Maurice did not. After an extraordinary debacle (and headache for diplomats) where he and the rest of the party were held at the airport, and all their craft impounded by the authorities, Maurice rejoined the rally, unofficially this time.

So did he arrive safely this time? Er, no. Having decided that he knew a 'better' route than the organisers, he went AWOL again. Another search and rescue.

Once more, Maurice turned up safe and well, having put down in a field in South Sudan. To the rescue this time came staff at the British Embassy in Juba, causing one associate to quip that it looked like Maurice's plan was to enjoy a G&T at every British Embassy between Cairo and Cape Town.

Where is his extraordinary journey going to end? Alas, no one has any idea — possibly including Maurice.

Belinda — one of his four children from two marriages — had been planning to fly out to Africa to link up with her intrepid dad. 'I was going to meet him in Botswana, but since he doesn't seem to be sticking to the schedule, he might not be there when he should be.'

Not that Maurice has gone entirely off-grid. While he was missing, the Mail sent him an email, in the rather outlandish hope he might pick it up at some stage. Late last week, he did, and sent pictures from Sudan, accompanied by a baffling series of emails — some cheery, some horrifying, some incomprehensible.

Trying to make sense of his epic adventure via email is near impossible, but we established that he'd just been to a tea party with the local governor and had been most delighted to meet his ostriches. Then he said he was planning to buy a bicycle before attempting to cross the border into Kenya. Eh?

During last week, though, the news got more worrying.

He did get his plane up and running, but on Thursday evening suffered yet another crash — his third in two weeks. This time it was more serious, though.

He talks of having been hauled from the scene by a crowd of hostile locals ('there were 27 in the police station watching me being searched', he says).

The facts are hazy, but he seems to have spent the night in the clink, and believes his plane was looted ('they took my white shirt'). As it stands, he hasn't been allowed to return to the craft to inspect it, but it's probably unflyable now.

Is he giving up, though? No, he has issued an appeal on Facebook for local pilots in Kenya to help. By yesterday, even Maurice's gung-ho resolve was sounding shaky when he got in touch to say that he was ill and in bed in a hotel in Juba.

'Are you scared, Maurice?' I asked. 'A little — sign of old age,' he replied.

Why is he doing this? He admits he is 'absolutely besotted by Africa'. 'Now I understand what they mean by the 'draw'.'

Are you going to kill yourself out there?

'I have had my three score years and ten . . . the rest is a bonus!'

And when are you coming home? 'Home? I have no home . . . don't please rub it in.'

While it all reads like a Hollywood movie in the making, the big question now is whether Maurice should be applauded as one of the last true eccentrics, or frog-marched home before he kills himself, or others.

Already, questions have been asked about why the organisers of the trans-Africa rally ever allowed him to join their ranks.

'He is well known in aviation circles to be a liability,' said Terry Holloway, vice-chairman of the Air League, and not a Maurice fan. 'He flies without a licence and cuts corners. He has guts and is probably quite an accomplished pilot but he is a nightmare. As eccentrics go, they don't get any weirder than Maurice Kirk.'

Yet last night Mr Holloway was rallying members of the aviation community in Africa to come to Maurice's aid.

It's certainly true that Maurice Kirk is one of a kind. Born in Somerset, he followed in his father's footsteps by qualifying as a vet in 1963.

 Maurice Kirk stands next to his damaged World War II-era plane, 'Liberty Girl', which he then planned to have restored, in Freeport, Maine

An obvious daredevil, he was also in the RAF Reserves, and went on to call himself The Flying Vet.

It's widely agreed that he is — or at least was — a brilliant aviator, once flying solo from London to Sydney in a clapped-out plane. In another race his plane collided with a lorry in Japan.

He was, rather inevitably, arrested, but the jape ended in his escape from prison wearing, according to his own website, 'nothing more than a kimono and a neck brace'.

It's not just the rules of aviation that Maurice seems to regard with disdain, though.

In 2001, and by now settled in Wales, Maurice was struck off the veterinary register after a string of complaints.

His run-ins with authority have been legendary — he once drove nine times around a roundabout while being pursued by police — something which probably says more about his penchant for mischief-making than his navigational ability.

Much of his retirement has been spent at war with South Wales Police.

He has also waged a vendetta against a psychiatrist who once declared him mentally ill and delusional. Other experts, he argues on his website, have found him completely sane, and intellectually brilliant.

You certainly can't accuse him of covering up his story. His whole life is on his website, even scans of his brain, so that readers can make up their own mind.

What to make of the man? Well, his own daughter offers quite a balanced view, considering.

'He's absolutely not mad. Madcap, yes, but perfectly sane, I have no doubt about that at all,' says Belinda.

Maurice was not a huge presence in Belinda's childhood (he split from Janet, her mother, when she was a child), but she grew up aware of his sense of adventure.

'He parachuted into his wedding to my mum, so yes, it was always there,' she says, dryly.

She clearly inherited something from her father, who married Kirstie, a fellow vet, in 1998 (though according to Belinda they have recently separated).

Belinda is an acclaimed explorer herself, and her company, Explorers Connect, has helped organise trips for TV adventurers Bear Grylls and Ray Mears.

Belinda herself has trekked across Nicaragua, searched for camels in China's 'Desert of Death', and was skipper of the first female crew to row non-stop around Britain, in a punishing 51-day voyage.

It gained her a place in Guinness World Records, and Sir Richard Branson called it 'quite the most remarkable achievement carried out by any woman alive today'.

On one level, she heartily approves of her father's latest epic adventure.

'I think he sees it as perhaps his last big trip, and I admire him for that, yes. In some ways there aren't enough people like him. We are too timid, too cosseted. Life is for living. What else would he do if he wasn't doing something like this? Gardening? Chess? I don't think so.'

Even Belinda, though, thinks Maurice has gone too far this time. 'He could do what he is doing in a safer way.

'We've all taken risks, but we tend to grow out of that sort of thing. Maurice never has. But he won't listen, not to me, not to anyone.'

Was she surprised to receive a call saying he'd gone missing on this latest jaunt? 'Not especially. Nothing he does could surprise me any more. Nothing.'

One gets the impression that his daughter won't be surprised if the next news from Africa is that Maurice has done it after all and landed on top of Table Mountain, perhaps with an ostrich in his cockpit.

'He's the cat with nine lives,' she admits. 'But even he is pushing it this time.'