TRAVEL IQ
HOW TO... MAXIMISE AIRTIME
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“Where can you go to get guaranteed flying?” If it rains or blows hard for a week, then your flying trip can be a write-off – and we all know the pain of that. There are only so many YouTube videos you can watch while wishing away the weather before your flying paradise fades to grey. But it’s still a question that pilots ask, especially those keen to build hours after qualifying. They may have been lured in to parting with their hard-earned cash by promises of endless days, a sky dotted with cumulus clouds and six-hour flights every day. When the reality turns out to be four hours a day in a minibus chasing the wind, it can be disheartening. The simplest way to avoid that type of situation is to stay flexible and check the weather for where the flying is looking good. That way, if it looks flyable in the French Alps but raining in the Austrian Alps, you go there. Plan your flying location to match the weather situation, just as you do at
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home. Yes, it will probably work out more expensive, but if you are sitting at cloudbase in France while your friends are sitting under umbrellas in Spain... well it’s priceless. The second way is to look at the recent historical records for where you want to fly. There is so much data online that you can clearly see patterns in who flies when and where. Identify the best time for where you want to fly, then around that time start to watch the forecast. Once it’s looking good, make your move! This doesn’t help if you are going long haul, or have to take holiday at a certain time. Then it’s back to the age-old question of “Where can you go to get guaranteed flying?” Then it’s about climate: what places with good flying infrastructure are good at what time of year. To help answer that one, we turned to the crowd on Cross Country’s social media channels for some suggestions on where pilots should go to get maximum airtime. From Brazil to Australia, everyone had a favourite spot. Here are some of them!
CROSS COUNTRY TRAVEL GUIDE 2020 MAXIMUM AIRTIME
THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE “Southern Morocco” – Andrew Morant “Brazil!” – Emma Casanova “Big Woody, Queensland” – Hammed Malik “Roldanillo, Colombia for the most consistent XC” – Rick Staton “Valle de Bravo in Mexico. Flew every day but one for three months straight” – Stefan Rolènx “For coastal soaring it would have to be Bali in the season” – Brian Walker “Not Scotland!” – Scott Kidd “Manilla in Australia was excellent last year. Worth the trip from NZ” – Cliff Swailes “Winter short-haul from Europe, Southern Morocco” – Tim King “Beechmont, Queensland” – Wesley Manzke “Castelo, Espirito Santo in Brazil. Flying every day, with every kind of wind!” – Davide Cardona “Bassano del Grappa, Italy, with over 300 flyable days a year!” – Anca Tabără Photo: Iquique, Chile, by François Ragolski
