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The Outback Air Race wrapped up in Coffs Harbour over the weekend after raising a record $750,000 for the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS).
The husband-and-wife team of Ian and Connie Warburton won the competition in their 1974 Piper Cherokee 140.
The 2022 race — which did not go ahead in 2021 due to COVID-19 — saw 86 competitors across 34 teams fly a total of 3,800 kilometres across three different states.
The teams flew to Cooinda, Adels Grove, Karumba, Shute Harbour, Gladstone, Roma, and Goondiwindi before finally landing in Coffs Harbour.
Along the way, competitors are allocated a certain number of points each day, with points deducted for each second they are late, and each metre they are away from the coordinated point.
Julie Jardine, pilot and committee member for the race, said, “When we fly through the outback and visit remote towns and cities, you realise what a vital service the RFDS is.
“Everyone has a story to tell of family members being saved by the service and are only too happy to donate to the cause.
“As pilots, we get to see first-hand what conditions are like for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and how important it is to keep the planes in the sky.”
Team Tait from Goondiwindi won the fundraising prize with after raising $106,000, while John Rafferty from Coffs Harbour won the official OAR raffle for a trip to the outback.
The winning competitor, Ian Warburton, has spent 53 years in the RAAF while his wife Connie works in IT for Defence.
The pair flew a 47-year-old Piper named ‘Twodogs’, usually kept hangared at Canberra Airport.
Australian Aviation previously reported how competitors this year included the first Australian woman to ski to both the South and North poles.
Linda Beilharz was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2010 and also named Australian Geographic Society’s Adventurer of the Year.
In 2004, she became the first Australian woman to ski 1,100 kilometres from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole.
Then, 16 years later, she trekked for 56 days over cracking ice to reach the North Pole. In total, Beilharz skied 780 kilometres, including covering 27 kilometres in 17-hour days with just an hour’s sleep per night.
