Jason – I wasn’t being glib at all and I hope I didn’t come across that way. I’m genuinely interested: what fuel burn do you get at best economy up high?
Essentially 1nm/lb Jet-A1 no wind @268knots.
For the Jetprop, FL270 best economy zero wind is 22.5gal/ hr @ 215 Kts. Normal cruise is 30 gal/hr @ 260 Kts.
I can break even with an airline ticket in Asia when I carry one other, and save cost with three of us in the 300-1,000 Nm trip range.
I can count on one hand the times I have flown domestic since owning the Jetprop, and have come to love being able to operate from a private strip, driving up to the hanger. When it all comes together it works like a charm as GA was always intended to.
Your dream is possible Adam…. 
E
What an awesome pic
Here is another you will recognise…
There are situations where the utility value over normal transport is spectacular. Starting with a lunch trip to Le Touquet… and a flight to the islands in the Adriatic is 5hrs (in a TB20 – 2.5hrs in a Jetprop) and beats a full day of complicated travelling.
Happy days!
E
I’d have to say quite impressive performance… 2000 NM endurance at economy speed, around 180kts TAS at 75%…. and all this with 52 USG Fuel and more than plenty full fuel payload for 2… a very powerful machine.
If you calculate: 10.5 hrs endurance to empty means 5 GPH and according to the range of 1430 NM a TAS of 143 kts. 16 hrs means 3.25 GPH at 125 kts.
If the real desire was for a 1/2 seater, I’d get seriously enthused about a civil PC7. Not, truth be told, that my personal budget would run to one, but it would be a lot of fun to run, as well as ticking the original poster’s boxes. 220ish kn cruise, 33,000ft ceiling, 1400ish nm range. Oh – and aerobatic!
Canards: have a serious problem in any kind of icing, eat runways, bloody awful in anything above very light turbulence. Lovely fun aeroplanes between good runways in VFR conditions, but that’s as far as I’d take the vast majority I’ve ever looked at.
I think my dream aeroplane if trying to meet that requirement, and I can certainly see the appeal would probably be:-
- Metal
- Diesel single or turboprop single
- 4 seat
- De-iced for preference, or at-least a turbulent flow mainplane and tailplane that’ll carry a moderate amount of ice.
- Fully wet wing
- Tailplane
- High lifting wing
Am I describing a diesel C182? Incredibly unglamorous, but getting in the right ballpark? Link Okay a bit slow, and a bit short legged, but not a bad solution.
G
What a beautiful picture, Eal! Where is that?
PC7 is an interesting idea. Hadn’t thought about that one.
Thanks. Yes, it is a great picture…
It was taken at my home airfield, in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand last month, just before a dawn flight to Phuket, circa 700Nm
Cheers. E
I suppose ‘dream planes’ and ‘real economy’ are related by them both being difficult, but not impossible to obtain. Otherwise they seem like different concepts to me.
My friend with the $25K, 207 mph, 160 HP scratch built Tailwind jokes that its his ‘corporate aircraft’ because he built it to meet a balanced spec, something like you would a business aircraft, not purely for fun as you might normally with a homebuilt. It has similar cruise to a Long-Eze on 45 more HP, but also has side-by-side seating, easy entry through two doors, good baggage capacity, and good short field capability. That Steve Wittman was a sharp cookie in 1953, and the owner actually did fly his 2000 nm away on a couple of business trips, writing off the fuel cost appropriately. That said, I note that the same guy is now partners in a Lancair 4, with its twin-turbo 350 HP engine. It might be fun in its own way to seek something for nothing, but its also fun to go in another direction and just go places fast. I’m not sure he’s enjoying ‘real economy’ any more.
My own economy calculation maximizes fun for the amount of money I can spend without worrying and thereby spoiling the fun. That’s all I want to do
P.S great Thailand photo!
Now, if you want to create some serious envy, eal, post the “man with the golden gun” pic
