Today I broke a personal speed record in a C172. I decided to fly from Cape Town to Kimberley in South Africa. Seeing as it was night time there I changed the time but kept real weather. I did not do proper flight preparation so I did not check the winds aloft. ATC gave me 11,000 ft and I was fine with that as I just wanted to check the actual VOR ranges on a couple legs. Turns out at that altitude the wind was… let’s just call it “rather brisk” and leave it at that! Fortunately it was almost exactly a tail wind so I was MOVING! Like would you believe 170kts ground speed in a C172 at a not totally extravagant power setting?
That was fun! 