Urine, fatigue and fuel dictate time in the air. Unless your passengers are willing to pee into bottles in a confined cockpit your range will be dictated by that bathroom break.
Like Robert’s Cub the MX-7-180 carries about eight hours’ fuel plus one hour reserve. With a fuel totaliser, useful range is about 840 nm with 8.50×6 tyres or 760 nm with 31" ABWs but I prefer to land and stretch my legs after a few hours; it doesn’t have to be at an airfield though.
Hovever, I rarely use the aux tanks and the main reason for carrying 9 hours fuel in a bushplane is to get “there” (where there’s no fuel) and back, or to carry fuel for others.
So far I’ve logged 7 flights longer than 4 hours flying the SR22TN. The longest was 4:28 going over 720 NM. After more than 4 hours one really wishes to be there. The 652 NM flight that took only 2:50 was much more pleasant – thanks to a great tailwind.
The 4:28 hrs flight over 720 NM ended with 18 GAL of fuel. That’s as low as I feel going and close to the minimum reserve anyway. Average fuel burn was 16,6 GAL/hr. Due to passengers I had to stay below at FL120.
So I would think that something between 700 – 750 NM is a realistic useable range for the G3 SR22TN. It only gets better with a good tailwind :-)
Europa XS Trigear with Rotax 914 burns 5,2 GPH @ roughly 120 KTAS and MTOM < FL100. Tankvolume is 18 GAL, so that results in 360 NM plus VFR-reserve (a little better up high). I agree, that after 3 hours I’d like to take a break.
I did two long flights in 2014, both landing with 14.5 USG. One was Samos-Lesbos-Zagreb (no avgas on Lesbos) and the other was Zagreb-Shoreham. Both had massive headwinds – of the order of 40kt – and were nearly 8hrs. They would have been 5-6hrs in nil wind.
2014 was the worst year ever for headwinds. Much stronger than forecast (sometimes 70kt versus 30kt) and relentless…
Whether a flight is nice to do depends on who you fly with, and on the scenery down below. The northern half of France is basically totally nondescript and I find that really tedious. Whereas flying with nice people is always fun no matter what is below.
If you cannot pee into a bottle, you will be up the sh*t creek the first time you are VMC on top above some seriously convective wx…
Peter wrote:
Both had massive headwinds – of the order of 40kt – and were nearly 8hrs.
Forget passengers. I wouldn’t want to sit in any aircraft smaller than a Boeing 777, let alone a TB20, for 8 hours.
My max range until dry is about 1200nm now, which is 1000nm with acceptable IFR reserves. On the previous plane it was around 1000nm and I did a few 5hr trips. They’re not particularly comfortable, but they’re doable. The much worse part is that one gets tired after about 6hrs of flying, so having a challenging arrival in IMC after a long flight isn’t always the smartest thing. But in general, I think you can’t have enough range.
I wouldn’t want to sit in any aircraft smaller than a Boeing 777, let alone a TB20, for 8 hours.
So a descent, landing and a climb through hazardous / icing wx is a better option?
1300 NM at 50% power, but I’m probably the only fool on this planet who’d be ok to sit in a DA42 for 10 hours.
1050 NM at 75% power, almost 7 hours..
My longest trips were in the range of 850 NM, 5.5 hrs.
My A36 has tip tanks for a total of 114 USG usable and I plan on 150 KTAS @12 USG/H, so 1425 nm still air. If I flew more slowly I could easily exceed 1500 nm.
When I ferried it back from South Africa with a ferry tank in the cabin we flew one leg of 12 hr 10 min – Libreville (FOOL) to Dakar (GOOY)!
