It was so very nice to read an account of a long (ish) VFR trip on here. I’ve flown the 172 on many long flights VFR and have not found it tiring, or for that matter boring. Thanks so much, Winston!
Winston, remarkable trip for such a low time pilot. That puts you in the 1% of 1% of new pilots for enterprise, skill and planning. Keep it up. Once you have the IR you will discover a dirty little secret. Long distance flying becomes MUCH easier.
Well done.
Nice pic of Sète there, on your way from Montpellier to Béziers.
Wait until you fly with or three PoB and fuel fuel, plus maybe in summer, and you‘ll see that the C172 is a rather poor performer, so keep your margins. Of course, having 180hp helps.
The point of getting an IFR qualification is not so much being able to file IFR, because as you see, flying VFR is not as bad as some people make it. It‘s to being comfortable climbing on top when VFR and knowing that you will safely your way back down.
Extremely well done Winston, and such a pity we could not meet up! No doubt you’ll show up on the next fly-in, however far that may be from home 
Great story, @Winston!
As I’ve already told you, from my perspective this is a great achievement and proof that even low-time fresh PPL pilot can make remarkable trips.
Antonio – I think I did over-plan, but it made things easy in the end. Your Pyrenees routes were extremely helpful; thank you. Next time I’ll be able to plan much more quickly now that I know what’s important when picking an airfield (opening hours, fuel availability and whether they reply to an email and/or answer the phone). An ADL device is on the shopping list, but after all the radio stack is fixed up and my IR(R) earned.
Ibra – I did this trip solo and was very willing to stop and turn around at LFAT, LFQB and LFMT. This made a massive difference to any self-imposed pressure. I did have 4G for much of the trip – certainly below 5000ft it’s usually there, but I will say that FIS were very helpful and it was no problem to ask them for weather. On the way down I was offered the weather for Montpellier without asking (“to save you from trying to listen to the ATIS”). IR(R) is now on the bucket list – I wanted to make sure that touring was for me before I started on it, and for sure the outbound Channel crossing has sold me on it.
I do think it’s very important to emphasise the near-perfect weather conditions. This would have been a much more tiring trip with winds and/or clouds, especially as it was hand-flown. Having said that, much of it is “just keep going and fly as normal”.
Brilliant trip report Winston
You planned it right and executed it right, so unsurprisingly it worked out.
It was great to meet you and a pity that you could be there for the Saturday night
