11 hour roundtrip from west Texas to Huntsville Alabama.
When I finished building my 9A, I sold my DRDT-2 to another builder, thinking I would never need it again. Now that I have a 10 kit coming in October, I obviously need one again. David Olivares in Huntsville just finished his 8 and is in Phase 1 with that airplane, and was proceeding to make the same mistake I did - sell his DRDT-2 - so here we go!
I filled my inboard and outboard tanks and departed 73XS about 7am and went nonstop to Huntsville in 5.4, first at 9,000' for best winds and then later at 13,000' for rising cumulus buildups in the last 300 miles or so. I burned about 40 gallons headed east, didn't watch it exactly.
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N16GN/history/20220701/1200Z/73XS/KHSV
I met David at his hangar and we went to lunch (great little Mexican food place down the road), loaded the DRDT-2 in my plane, and I launched for KHAB about 70 miles back toward home, where they were advertising $4.90 fuel. That's cheaper than anywhere else I have found 100LL recently, and almost as cheap as I can buy 93E10 back home, so I tanked up my inboards and outboards again, and launched for home VFR with flight following at 16,500', well above the buildups that were busy causing heartburn and angst with all the spam cans below me.
For some reason Flightaware does not realize these were two separate flights, so it shows it as one flight with an extra descent and climb. The altitude jitters on the way home are interesting as well, I was quite stable and smooth at 16,500 all the way.
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N16GN/history/20220701/2004Z/KHSV/L%2031.76656%20-101.57997
I was truing out consistently between 147 and 153 knots on 6.0 and 5.9 gallons per hour all the way home. Gotta love the efficiency, especially with long range tanks. I went nonstop from KHAB to 73XS in 4.9, burning 30 gallons, and landed back home at 8:15pm. That's a 14-hour drive one way plus stops, and I roundtripped it in 13 with a good lunch in the middle, with 11 hours in the air.
David asked me why I would make a trip all the way across the country for a used DRDT-2. I told him I looked at it this way - it was about $400 in fuel, plus $200 for the used DRDT-2 (which was in excellent condition), for a total of $600. A new DRDT-2 sells for $550 plus shipping, so that's still going to be $600, it's a toss-up on price. But this way I get to spend all day doing what I love, seeing some new country, go to a place I've never been, meet another builder and BS about airplanes for a while. What's not to love?
UPS ain't got nothing on a 9A...