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13 OCTOBER 2005

Jon Johanson receives world aviation award in Paris.

Last night in Paris, Australian pilot, Jon Johanson, received the world’s highest aviation award, the GOLD MEDAL of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI).

Jon said “it is a huge honour to receive this international award”. He joins the list of three other celebrated Australians who have been awarded the FAI Gold Medal. They are Bert Hinkler (1928), Sir Donald Anderson (1973) and Peter Lloyd (1989).

Jon has received the gold medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of aeronautics in sport aviation. The medal was presented at the opening ceremony of the conference celebrating 100 years of the FAI.

The FAI Secretary General, Max Bishop, said “ Jon’s hard work, meticulous planning, initiative and commitment when building his own small aircraft were supremely demonstrated when he flew it over distances and terrains that would have challenged the most intrepid and skilful aviators in much larger, industrially produced aircraft”.

Jon has spent thousands of hours building, modifying and testing his single engine RV-4 sport aircraft, VH-NOJ for the long distance flights..

Jon holds 48 FAI world records. His record making flights have included:
· Three times around the world (heading east, west and north)
· Over the north pole (part of the third round the world flight)
· Over the south pole. (first solo single engine)

Jon said “it is a huge honour to receive this international award”. He joins the list of three other celebrated Australians who have been awarded the FAI Gold Medal. They are Bert Hinkler (1928), Sir Donald Anderson (1973) and Peter Lloyd (1989).
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Additional information

· Jon will be attending the special “High Flyers” centenary celebrations with the FAI in Paris on Friday evening see http://www.fai.org/fai_news_11_05
· Jon Johanson is 49 years old and lives in Adelaide, South Australia
· He built his aircraft, a Van’s RV-4, in Darwin in the early ‘90s. It was extensively re-engineered at Parafield, SA, for the flight to the South Pole in 2003.

June 2004. Jon was named the Australian National Geographic "Adventurer of the Year" and to mark the achievement was awarded a suitable medal.

as of 22 Dec03 Jon's Letter

At the 2004 AGM, Jon explained that the polar flights started seven years ago as he began contacting as many experienced cold weather flyers as he could. They told him about the effects on the airframe, systems, fuel, oil, performance and most importantly of the physical demands on the pilot.

He examined everything he could about the weather in the Antarctic even to the extent of sending his interpretations of the Internet data to the best Antarctic met man in the world. Eventually Jon's predictions co-related with those of his expert.

He also discovered that the Antarctic belongs to everyone in the world. The established bases have a policy of choosing not to help people who visit the territory but cannot prevent those wish to visit from making the trip. However, when Jon sought to place five drums of fuel he discovered that it would cost $100k to do so with twelve months support for two people to look after it at a further cost of $120k. That's about $220 per litre. Somewhat prohibitive and discouraging.

Not to be put off his team worked on extending the range of NOJ to make a non stop flight from Invecargill to Sth America via 90 degrees South 180 degrees E (and later filed a flight plan just so). The flight had to be done above any icing temperatures because NOJ does not have de-icing equipment and so Jon planned to keep below minus 15 degrees C. There have been reports of icing at temperatures below that but then everything is a calculated risk. He could have minimised the risk by not going but that is not his way.

They looked into diesel power but that was too expensive and the factory wanted to install the engine themselves. The team then worked to achieve an average ground speed of 130 knots after allowing for 30 knot average headwinds and fuel for more than 30 hours endurance. They then fitted turbocharger, intercooler, programable ignition timing and refined fuel injectors to reduce fuel flow but still provide power to maintain flight levels to improve TAS. They now had an RV4-TE. NOJ is no longer an RV4.

That provided for the distance with reserve for another 1000 miles.

Antarctic weather is difficult at the best and despite all the indications in the forecastof winds reducing to light and variable it did not turn out to be quite that good. In the event, after transitting the pole and proceeding on course, Jon and his base crew in Adelaide, assuming that the forecast improvement in the winds would not eventuate, calculated that the remaining fuel would provide only 40 minutes of reserve for Sth. America for a flight time of 9 hours. The British base on the Peninsula would not accept an alternate nomination in case their assumptions were correct and so he turned back to MacMurdo/ Scott . This was the safest option even though Jon was, and still is convinced, that he could have flown on to Sth. America. Even if they had had the benefit of hindsight, the team would have changed nothing in either the planning or the flight or the decisions.

Jon had done 150 hours of testing all the mods to get everything right before departure and knew the aspects of performance required in temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees. He could even program the ignition to use MOGAS if neccessary. He knew that he had to fly for more than six hours before gaining safe altitude above the possible freezing layers and for more than 20 hours of fuel burn off before he could land. He knew that when leaving NZ at double the usual weight for an ordinary RV4, he could still climb at beter than 500 feet per minute and would get above the icing. He knew that he had a still air range of more than 5700 NM. and with the best met info available , more than enough fuel for the whole journey. Independent assessors had confirmed all his data.

He was the first in his class to solo both North and South Poles. All of the many previous attempts at the South had failed. What does this tell the world about his planning, aircraft and determination?

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