In my previous aviation life my longest one day trip was ZRH-Lyon-Perpignan-Avignon-Geneva in one day, Cessna 150. Landed at 2155 at Geneva, 5 minutes before curfew, after battling a Mistral all the way from Avignon. Never saw the Mont Blanc in the same position for that long.
Currently, longest trip i’ve done is to Bulgaria and back.
Mooney_Driver thank you for reviving this thread – hopefully weather improves this spring and some more VFR flights are posted. The 90HP Super Cub with one fuel stop would make 500nm + around six and a half hours in the saddle – requiring an AirTex saddle, although it has occasionally had a 400nm day.
Would 445nm count ?, I find that at 500nm in Europe you will encounter a front somewhere along the route, obviously depending on terrain and cloudbase it can be managed but it also depends on the sort of airspace you will be in when you encounter the front.
Last week south of dusseldorf I could not get a clearance through class C so I had to drop down underneath – and with the help of Langen info pass through a gap between 2 thunderstorms, sounds dramatic but I would have had a lot more flexibility 50nm to the east encountering the same weather.
I find that at 500nm in Europe you will encounter a front somewhere along the route,
I think this is very true if one is flying VFR below the cloudbase. However one can fly VFR in much of Europe as VMC on top. It means you need to be fairly sure of VFR conditions at the destination but a lot of the time this is not an issue, especially if heading for a destination on a coast.
My longest VFR trips were as long as my longest IFR trips – Shoreham to Crete for example – but the VFR ones were all done at high altitude, carrying oxygen for all of it and this was necessary e.g. over the Alps. In fact the VFR ones were on similar routes to the IFR ones; once you get outside the UK, Italy, and some other places where you cannot get into [most] CAS as VFR, high altitude VFR works very well.
Yea well, with a not yet 2 year old I will be out of the oxygen business for a while… she won’t even keep on the ear protector so far.
(just noticed that I had posted these two flights in 2016 already… but missed it on my read through. Well, it’s time for me to do something newer so I don’t have only memories of days past. )
Last year I flew around the Baltic Sea with a cruise speed of 80 knots. We flow almost 1500 nm VFR in vintage aircraft with basic instruments. It was good fun!
Used SkyDemon for navigation.
My longest ones have been Lerwick to Frensham Ponds, via Breighton for fuel..with the whole family (wife and two teenage daughters)..which was 545 nm. I have to say Shetland exceded all expectations as a holiday destination.
The other one was 528 nm from Locarno to Popham. Nice and peaceful coming through the Alps and then France.
Both very memorable trips.
(I did manage 14 hrs 11 mins a couple of weeks ago..from Santiago, Chile to London..also a fantastic flight..)
Peter wrote:
I think this is very true if one is flying VFR below the cloudbase. However one can fly VFR in much of Europe as VMC on top.
Yes, found that again recently when going EDXR to ENVA and had a good layer between Danish and Norwegian coast.
And on the way back (ENVA – EDXO) i encountered a build up around Gardermoen that even CAT requested to avoid from ATC. Forced me up to FL140…
just returned from a four country trip, France, Switzerland,Czech and Germany, hope to do lots more this summer. vfr.
Last week we returned VFR from EDNY with good weather all the way to Blackbushe a distance of 464NM, apart from a CB over the Isle of Wight.
My longest VFR flights in the last year have been to Cannes 574NM, Bordeaux Saucats 408NM and Sarlat Dom 402NM.
Some day I hope to get down to the Canary Islands which is 1812NM.
