This German guy (I assume), flew from Cape Verde to Natal in his DA-42 Twinstar. He had a Turtle Pac, but could perhaps have done it on the built in long range tanks at max economy cruise, but it would have been tight. Interesting film, but obviously nothing that hasn’t been done before. But I have to say I’m really impressed with the fuel burn. This thing burns 11gal/hr in total and he used only 110 gal for entire trip! Now that’s some cheap flying right there. Wow. If you just count fuel, he’s flown from Africa to South America for $380. Could you have found an airline ticket cheaper? Highly doubt it.
If they’d just made the DA-42 pressurized, I would be tempted to have a look at one myself. Seems like great aircraft. 
A typical Adam Frisch calculation just add landing and handling fees at both ends and you will already be way past 1000$…
Anyway, that guy is my hero. Watch this video to see why…
I have flown in a DA42 and it was doing 11.5USG/hr total for 140kt IAS, low level. So I would expect 150kt TAS at say 10k at 11.5USG/hr.
I typically cruise 163 kts at FL180 with 11 USG/h. You can get few knots more with 12 USG/h or few knots less with 10 USG/h.
At lower levels it’s bit slower e.g. usually 153 kts at FL120 with 11 USG/h.
However, cheap fuel is not the only cost when flying DA42. Quick calculation shows that it’s cheaper (if you’re owner) to fly it with higher burn rate to save airtime and engine hours.
Emir wrote:
Quick calculation shows that it’s cheaper (if you’re owner) to fly it with higher burn rate to save airtime and engine hours.
Why don’t you fly it faster then? I wouldn’t be concerned about running the Thielerts at max cont (92% IIRC), they have a 21st century cooling system and as long as the coolant temperature looks good, the engine will feel comfortable.
Don’t the Thielerts even have 100% MCP (however – who would run an engine that way in cruise?), whereas the Austros have a MCP well below that (92%?)?
Indeed, although I was trained to throttle back to 92% on Thielert 2.0 as soon as practicable. But it’s lovely, this is how engines should be.
europaxs wrote:
Don’t the Thielerts even have 100% MCP (however – who would run an engine that way in cruise?), whereas the Austros have a MCP well below that (92%?)?
Assuming there is no thermal issue why wouldn’t you run MCP – in that engine is it know to degrade life?
Why don’t you fly it faster then?
Actually I usually try to do but it’s compromise between fewer landings and longer legs and cheaper fuel on some airports (e.g. Jet A1 at Sarajevo is €0.40 so if I land there on my way to Greece and refuel with full tanks I can fly to Athens and back without refueling in Greece and then refuel at Sarajevo again before returning to Croatia). I know that the difference usually is not so big but calculating makes me happy
We don’t even have any empirically proven and generally accepted “best practices” for Lycos and Contis (i.e. which is better? high power or low power operation? ROP or LOP? High RPM or low RPM? etc.), which have been around in many thousands for 70 years. How could one expect to have any really singificant empirics for the Centurion engine, which, in the overall picture (number of millions of flight hours), is still an “exotic” engine?
One will simply have to do what one “thinks” is good and live with the results, but there will never be definitive answer. The POH (written at the very beginning of the life cycle of the product) is also useless for establishing that.
