Hello,
What is your opinion regarding the minimum speed for a plane used for travelling VFR in Europe?
I am fully aware that you can do it with a Scheibe SF25 at 75kts – I have a book here from the guy who flew one to Australia – but I wonder what you experienced travellers would consider a reasonable minimum and, if different, what you actually use.
Now I wonder what speed to use for this comparison, I’d say TAS but please mention the altitudes at which you travel.
150kt TAS is good enough for me. That means I can cover 400NM in 3h with a light headwind. Ideally though I’d fly with 170-180TAS which I hope I will most of the time in my M20M Bravo.
The decisive point is: will you have to fly into a headwind?
If you’re able to say: nah, I won’t fly anyway if it’s nasty … then speed doesn’t matter.
I’ve done beautiful trips in an SF25, in gliders, in Super Dimona and in microlights up to 2.000 miles in vacations.
But if you fly to arrive somewhere, then the amount of potential headwinds decides about the required ground speed. A 50 knots headwind is doable at 150 TAS but is really hard at or below 100 TAS.
I have also chosen the 150 TAS class. My steed can even go a bit faster (advertised at up to 208 true according to the manual, which I don’t believe, however), but I seldom go faster than 150, sometimes 170, never been faster than 180.
You can find quite some good value airplanes in this speed range.
Faster is always better, but above 150 true that really comes at a price tag.
My old Super Cub was happy at 80 KIAS and I did some reasonably long trips, but with a passenger, suggest only one hour sectors.
Basically, unless you have a very enthusiastic (read long suffering) partner, I limit sectors to two hours if carrying passengers. In this context my old Warrior (120 KTAS) was perfectly sensible. 240nm is a good distance.
Faster is always better, but above 150 true that really comes at a price tag.
And of course, to the extent that stall and minimum controllable airspeeds are linked to cruise airspeed, a “medical expenses after forced landing” price tag. 
For example, a UK AAIB report confirms that one can land a lightly loaded C150 in a mature Sitka spruce forest and walk away without a bruise or scratch. Anecdotally, tree landings in Piper Archer class or faster airplanes seem to require a trip to hospital/ICU.
I usually fly anywhere between 165 and 180 KTAS (recorded in FlySto) trying to choose appropriate altitude to minimize headwind or maximize tailwind. However, when choosing between worse headwind and potential flying in clouds, I always choose above the clouds regardless the wind.
I checked my average ground speed (recorded via ADL) and it’s not so great – 145 kts.
Edit: I re-checked and ADL puts direct distance in database log rather than real ground distance covered. That means that my average GS is much higher. Unfortunately FlySto doesn’t show it directly, you can calculate it and then average but it’s too much manual work.
Emir wrote:
I checked my average ground speed (recorded via ADL) and it’s not so great – 145 kts.
Damn. Since I’ll be flying your speeds, this doesn’t excite me too much. :(
Currently, I fly mostly planes that do 110 – 130 kts TAS. They’re all fine for doing trips throughout Europe. Faster is indeed often better to get somewhere, but it does come with an increased price tag. I would say 120 kts TAS is pretty comfortable for doing nice VFR trips.
hazek wrote:
Damn. Since I’ll be flying your speeds, this doesn’t excite me too much. :(
Don’t be disappointed – my calculation referred to wrong distances (direct distances, rather the really flown ground distances) so the average ground speed is much higher, probably close to TAS.
Frans wrote:
I would say 120 kts TAS is pretty comfortable for doing nice VFR trips.
Man you have more patience than me xD
Btw, do you still do longer trips? Would love some new videos if you have the time, you really have some great content! It certainly taught me a lot.
Emir wrote:
Don’t be disappointed
Rog.
