EKP V: A Guinness performance!

Riding the Skies: from Italy to Australia with two ultra lights
Roberto Bisa (pilot) and Antonio Forato (rally champion) enter the Guinness World Records for having flown 22,000 km with two ultralight aircraft with the help of EKP V GPS!

The challenge

"Riding the skies" is the name of the challenge that Roberto Bisa and Antonio Forato have undertaken starting from Cassola (Vicenza) in October 5th, 2013 to reach Sydney, Australia in November 2nd 2013.

A total of 22,000 km in about 22 days, 122 hours of flight, crossing 16 countries (Italy, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia) passing through 40 airports with the help of AvMap EKP V. Riding the Skies has officially entered the Guinness World Records as ' longest journey by ultralight aircraft '.

The aircraft

Antonio Bisa flies a Flysyntesys Top 100 Texan, while Forato flies a Technam P 92 Eaglet. To accomplish this challenge the two ultralight aircraft were adapted by removing the passenger seat to make room for a third additional tank to ensure a flight range for ten hours.

Avionics

There was very little space available, so AvMap EKP V has been the ideal avionic instrument for the enterprise. An EKP V was integrated in both cockpits with the smart docking Station. The two pilots could remove it very evening and take it with them to plan the next flight carefully.

The EKP V provided was preloaded with worldwide maps, complete world Jeppesen data, and HERE street maps for Europe and Australia. It has been a precious instrument to prepare the flight plan and schedule the route with precision, given the limited autonomy of ultralight. The longer distances covered from day to day were the 1444 km from Alexandria to Luxor and Jeddah ; then Gwadar - Karachi - Ahmadabad (Oman / Pakistan / India) for a total of 1529 km Bima - Kupang - Truscot (Indonesia / East Timor / Australia ) for a total of 1489 km .

Bisa and Forato have flown VFR, avoiding the night, and trying to avoid the rain, fog strong wind. The two pilots took-off half an hour before sunrise, landing at 17-17.30, with a cruising speed of about 180-200 km per hour.

The journal

Roberto and Antonio have written a real time journal every night sharing pictures and thoughts on www.ridingtheskies.com, and in the Facebook pages www.facebook.com/RidingTheSkies and www.facebook.com/NavigatoriAeronauticiAvMap

"I think the most difficult flight ," says Bisa "has been that going from Jeddah to Riyadh, it was over a desert area an and we had to go quickly, because Saudi Arabia did not grant us tourist visas but only a transit visa that lasted 18 hours . "
"Also the stretch between Timor and Darwin has been challenging," adds Forato” because the ocean is very windy, very cold water and is haunted by sharks!

Riding the Skies

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