The forecast was for the day to start early, go late and go high. Only Derek Spencer and Igor were present on field so Igor suggested they do a cross-country in FQW.
They launched just before 12. There were clouds popping to the north and out to the east as far as the eye could see. The engine was shut down just over 2000’ and FQW climbed away in a nice thermal. Igor and Derek did 428km in FQW over 7 hours. They went north to Peterborough and then south east to the Woolpunda Water Tower and back to Stonefield. Using the maximum of 4 turn points, they got 428km from the trace.
Thermals were strong and going high. There were dust devils all over the place. Derek and Igor flew conservatively and didn’t really push that hard. The low points were 4000’ at Burra and 5000’ at Waikerie on the way home. They were rarely lower than 6000’. On the final glide back to Stonefield, they achieved roughly 3nm/1000’ (on average) at 50 knots. It was an awesome flight.
It looks like Derek and Igor will have dibs on the FQW trophy for January this year. This flight is going to take some beating, but it did show that a 500km flight in FQW is possible given the right day. They landed at 7pm which meant that there was still 1 hour and 30 minutes of daylight left to achieve an even greater distance.