Back when we were student pilots, we flew cross-country training flights in slow machines whose range matched the length of that “long” cross-country we were required to take before qualifying for a license. What was that – three legs of at least 100 miles? Wow – it sure felt like I was a far piece from home. Then again, I was flying a J-3 cub, so I WAS a long way from home! That training set certain expectation bits in our minds – what we think about speed, distance, and fuel required derives from those early lessons. Deviations from the straight line course were costly in terms of time to get where we were going – get ten miles off course, and watch the ETA drift on out.
RV flying is a whole different kind of animal. With cruise speeds that make those 100 mile legs disappear in less than half an hour, and endurance enough to fly for close to five hours, it is amazing how our perception changes. Lay out a course on Skyvector or your other favorite flight planner, say 1000 miles. The Texas coast to Central Minnesota. That’s one fuel stop by the way. Now let’s say you go looking for cheap fuel, and there’s none along the route. But way out there in central Kansas, someone is having a sale on gas. Too good to pass up. You pull the course line way over there, 100 miles out of the way – as long as a full student cross-country! How much does it increase your overall trip distance? Well, simple trig will tell you the answer - or you can rubber-band it on Skyvector - and find that you’ve added about 20 miles overall - that’s about six or seven minutes, over a six hour trip.
The ability to deviate cheaply and with little impact to the overall trip length is one of the great safety and utility advantages of an airplane like the RV. I must admit that in my low and slow days, I had to debate about punching through bad weather because getting around it would just take me too far out of the way. In an ideal world, that kind of debate should never happen - but in the real world, it does. There shouldn’t be any debate about safety, but when it comes to many in-flight decisions, it isn’t black and white - there are too many shades of gray - like the color of the clouds up ahead. (By the way, if those clouds turn green, you do NOT want to be there….). So having the ability to go around a big weather system with little impact to fuel or schedule is a big deal, and that is what the RV gives us.
Out west, it’s not the weather - it’s the airspace! I was plotting a trip to the Grand Canyon just the other day, and a line from Houston to Flagstaff cuts cleanly across the middle of the White Sands Missile range. This huge block of Restricted Airspace stretches well over a hundred miles north to south, and at first blush, it appears as a terrible obstacle to such a trip. Well I happen to know a little bit about what goes on there, and there is no way I’m NOT going to deviate around it. So I drag the course line up to the north in a big dogleg - and discover that this huge change in initial course adds about ten minutes to the trip - if that. OK, so maybe the airspace grabs aren’t quite as bad as we think they are - at least when we’re traveling a long distance.
The key to taking advantage of all of this (along with the speed and range of the RV) is that you can’t fly right up to the point where you need to deviate, and then make a 90 degree turn. Do that, and you add 100 miles to the trip. To take the sting out of the deviations, you need to start out heading towards the elbow of trip. This minimizes the total distance flown. If you are trying to avoid airspace or immovable objects such as mountains, you might as well head off on the “detour” form the start. And if the deviation is going to be for weather, then making the decision early (based on trends and knowledge of what usually happens to thunderstorms in the summer) is not only more efficient, but safer as well. Such a deviation keeps you farther from the weather and keeps you from being tempted to penetrate that which you shouldn’t if you have gotten up close before deviating.
I remember one of those trips from Minnesota back to Houston a couple of years ago. Thunderstorm potential was high for the Ark-O-Tex region, and while it was still morning, and nothing was showing, it was clear that the course was going to be clobbered by early afternoon when I arrived. So instead of heading for southern Missouri along the direct line, I pointed the nose at Dallas - 100+ miles out of the way. By the time I got to Kansas City, I could see a huge area of reds and yellows on the radar from Paris, TX eastward across the Mississippi. The view out the windshield confirmed the presence of monsters - but they were all to the left of my nose. I was sailing over east Oklahoma and headed for the Metroplex, the total length of my trip about 10 minutes longer than if I’d try to go straight. And trying to save those ten minutes would clearly have cost me a day - and a night spent sleeping on a pilot lounge couch somewhere.
When you start flying one of these RV “magic carpets” on long cross-countries, you will have to adjust your way of thinking as well. Plan the flight that gives you the widest weather berth, or stops at the cheapest fuel spots. The deviations will be trivial if you make the decision early. I generally use Airnav to get the fuel prices for a 100 mile swath along my route before I leave home - and I am not afraid to go out of my way - because I have done the math, and realize that doglegs really don’t matter - not when you have the speed and range to laugh at going 100 miles out of the way.
Paul
RV flying is a whole different kind of animal. With cruise speeds that make those 100 mile legs disappear in less than half an hour, and endurance enough to fly for close to five hours, it is amazing how our perception changes. Lay out a course on Skyvector or your other favorite flight planner, say 1000 miles. The Texas coast to Central Minnesota. That’s one fuel stop by the way. Now let’s say you go looking for cheap fuel, and there’s none along the route. But way out there in central Kansas, someone is having a sale on gas. Too good to pass up. You pull the course line way over there, 100 miles out of the way – as long as a full student cross-country! How much does it increase your overall trip distance? Well, simple trig will tell you the answer - or you can rubber-band it on Skyvector - and find that you’ve added about 20 miles overall - that’s about six or seven minutes, over a six hour trip.
The ability to deviate cheaply and with little impact to the overall trip length is one of the great safety and utility advantages of an airplane like the RV. I must admit that in my low and slow days, I had to debate about punching through bad weather because getting around it would just take me too far out of the way. In an ideal world, that kind of debate should never happen - but in the real world, it does. There shouldn’t be any debate about safety, but when it comes to many in-flight decisions, it isn’t black and white - there are too many shades of gray - like the color of the clouds up ahead. (By the way, if those clouds turn green, you do NOT want to be there….). So having the ability to go around a big weather system with little impact to fuel or schedule is a big deal, and that is what the RV gives us.
Out west, it’s not the weather - it’s the airspace! I was plotting a trip to the Grand Canyon just the other day, and a line from Houston to Flagstaff cuts cleanly across the middle of the White Sands Missile range. This huge block of Restricted Airspace stretches well over a hundred miles north to south, and at first blush, it appears as a terrible obstacle to such a trip. Well I happen to know a little bit about what goes on there, and there is no way I’m NOT going to deviate around it. So I drag the course line up to the north in a big dogleg - and discover that this huge change in initial course adds about ten minutes to the trip - if that. OK, so maybe the airspace grabs aren’t quite as bad as we think they are - at least when we’re traveling a long distance.
The key to taking advantage of all of this (along with the speed and range of the RV) is that you can’t fly right up to the point where you need to deviate, and then make a 90 degree turn. Do that, and you add 100 miles to the trip. To take the sting out of the deviations, you need to start out heading towards the elbow of trip. This minimizes the total distance flown. If you are trying to avoid airspace or immovable objects such as mountains, you might as well head off on the “detour” form the start. And if the deviation is going to be for weather, then making the decision early (based on trends and knowledge of what usually happens to thunderstorms in the summer) is not only more efficient, but safer as well. Such a deviation keeps you farther from the weather and keeps you from being tempted to penetrate that which you shouldn’t if you have gotten up close before deviating.
I remember one of those trips from Minnesota back to Houston a couple of years ago. Thunderstorm potential was high for the Ark-O-Tex region, and while it was still morning, and nothing was showing, it was clear that the course was going to be clobbered by early afternoon when I arrived. So instead of heading for southern Missouri along the direct line, I pointed the nose at Dallas - 100+ miles out of the way. By the time I got to Kansas City, I could see a huge area of reds and yellows on the radar from Paris, TX eastward across the Mississippi. The view out the windshield confirmed the presence of monsters - but they were all to the left of my nose. I was sailing over east Oklahoma and headed for the Metroplex, the total length of my trip about 10 minutes longer than if I’d try to go straight. And trying to save those ten minutes would clearly have cost me a day - and a night spent sleeping on a pilot lounge couch somewhere.
When you start flying one of these RV “magic carpets” on long cross-countries, you will have to adjust your way of thinking as well. Plan the flight that gives you the widest weather berth, or stops at the cheapest fuel spots. The deviations will be trivial if you make the decision early. I generally use Airnav to get the fuel prices for a 100 mile swath along my route before I leave home - and I am not afraid to go out of my way - because I have done the math, and realize that doglegs really don’t matter - not when you have the speed and range to laugh at going 100 miles out of the way.
Paul
Last edited:
