Finally after propping up the bar in Galileo for the past couple of months my newly minted Explore-a-hauler has arrived and we set off yesterday.
Highlights so far have been 2 emergency crashes (being distracted by the Ship's cat both times) and accidentally turning off thrusters in frameshift.
It turns out frameshift is not controlled by the FSD as I imagined.
1,000 ly out, just another 23 sessions to go!
Good luck CMDR, and yes, you need your thrusters and FSD for supercruise - I think all long distance explorers learn that lesson the same way