Flying above operating ceiling

[Knottypine1979 0]

On the Icon A5 info sheet, it says the ceiling of the aircraft is at 15,000 ft. One of the Aerocaches was up at the Observatory, so I thought I'd just keep flying the Icon and try and get it. It took a LONG time, but I eventually got up to around 12,000 ft or so, and had to descend a little to get the cache. But I made it!So then I though, since I spent all this time getting up here, lets see just how high I can go. Now this journey began before the sun had set, got some nice screenshots. But by the time I reached my max height, the stars were out. I successfully flew at 581 ft beyond the ceiling. At this point it was fairly difficult to maintain anything above 49 Kts before nearing a stall. My total altitude 15,581 ft without a stall condition. Altimeter set at 29.92. It took a long time to come down without overstressing the aircraft.I usually fly with the HUD turned off, but for ease of viewing altitude I have it turned on.Uploaded with ImageShack.usCheersDarryl