Four women will depart Flinders Island in Tasmania next week with the sole aim of making a landing in every state and mainland territory of Australia before the sun goes down.
The ambitious Australian in a Day flight is part of the International Dawn to Dusk Challenge, and is doubling as a fundraiser for the Australian Women Pilots Association (AWPA) Freda Thompson and Claire Embling Aviation Award.
The Dawn to Dusk Challenge is now in its 59th year, and encourages pilots from all over the world to demonstrate original and praiseworthy use of an aircraft between dawn and dusk whilst maintaining high standards of airmanship.
Crewing the A36 Bonanza are organiser and pilot Theresa MacDonald, pilots Amanda Deeds and Jess Phillips, and observer, timekeeper and journal-keeper Gail Collins.
"It's something I always wanted to do," MacDonald told Australian Flying this week. "Amanda and I talked about it about three years ago, but then COVID came along. Because I co-ordinate the Freda Thompson and Claire Embling Award for the AWPA, I thought it might be nice to combine the two and use it as a fundraiser. That's how it got started."
Weather and favourable winds permitting, the team will depart Flinders Island at dawn on Tuesday and complete the challenge before dark, tracking westward to take advantage of the lengthening sunlight in that direction. The planned route is then:
- Latrobe Valley (Vic)
- Canberra (ACT)
- Cootamundra (NSW)
- White Cliffs (NSW)
- Moomba (SA)
- Birdsville (QLD)
- Ayers Rock (NT)
- Forrest (WA)
Knowing that the setting sun may defeat them, the crew has Giles (WA) as a Plan B end-point before resting up at Forrest for a couple of days. Without the Giles diversion, the journey is one of 1814 nm, around 11 hours flying depending on winds.
Despite some fringe naysayers, the venture has received a lot of support, with Flinders Island council donating fuel, Canberra Airport waiving landing fees, Aero Refuelers donating fuel, Santos Ltd giving permission to use Moomba, and Forrest Airport donating a night's accommodation to the cause.
MacDonald, a Grade 1 flying instructor, has enough experience to know that a venture such as this needs a lot of things to go their way to get the job done.
"It might not happen," she said. "We might have a hiccup and get delayed ... you know what aviation is like. It wouldn't stop us having another attempt at some point, but we're hoping for the first attempt. It has cost us a lot to get ready for it all, but we'll have the joy of flying as well."
The team are hoping for a VFR day right across the route, but just in case have qualified pilots on board to handle IMC should they encounter discouraging weather.
Accordingly, the crew is allowing themselves one of three days to depart Flinders Island between next Tuesday and Thursday, selecting the day with the most favourable winds.
"We'd like to go Tuesday," MacDonald said,"but if we get full headwinds there's not much point. We are following the sun so we get longer daylight in our favour. We'll look at the synoptic charts and make a decision when we all get together on Monday."
At the time of writing, the team has collected over $10,000 in donations through GoFundMe, but in the coming days is hoping for more contributions to boost the coffers for the AWPA.
It may be that the team completes the task, but still doesn't win the Dawn to Dusk Challenge for 2022. Even if that doesn't happen, it will still be a great achievement flown in support of a good cause.