[captainron]

The past couple of days have made me stop and think about the marvels of modern aviation. As an example; on Thursday, I departed Teterboro, NJ in a 300 kt. turboprop headed for Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The average headwinds were about 85-90 kts. With a refuel and lunch stop, the trip took nine hours.
The next day I boarded an airliner headed for Florida. With the same or better winds, this time on the tail, and in a 480 kt. airliner, I made it home in 15 hours and my bags made the same journey in just 27 hours flat!
Is THIS what they call Jet Lag?

 

[pierre smith]

Try RV

Hi Ron,
According to Airnav, the distance is 1409 nautical or 1620 statute. In my RV (or any 180 HP RV) figuring 180 MPH on the return, with no tailwinds, three 540 mile legs would take 9 hours. Add an hour for each of two gas stops and it figures out to 11 hours!!

If the tailwinds were there, at say 25 MPH, each leg at 205 MPH groundspeed would only take 2.6 hours, plus two more for fuel yields 9.8 hours total. I'm also being conservative in my speed assumption because I can get 204 TAS with no tailwind! The real world numbers would probably be better and likely be done with only one fuel stop. Go RV!
Regards,

 

[TSwezey]

This is assuming you don't go bird hunting with your leading edge on the way home!
Captain Ron 1 Bird 0

 

[captainron]

This is assuming you don't go bird hunting with your leading edge on the way home!
Captain Ron 1 Bird 0

BTW, It's still in the body shop being cleaned and pressed!

 

[Bryan Wood]

Hi Ron,
In my RV (or any 180 HP RV) figuring 180 MPH on the return, with no tailwinds, three 540 mile legs would take 9 hours. Regards,

Why this peeked my interested I don't know, but it did. I just went to the Van's site and checked performance on all models that they have sold and all of them except the 10 will do 180mph on 160 hp. The 10 will do it on the smallest engine they list for it. Leaving out the 10 again, the others will do this speed @ 65% power on 160hp. (Actually the 9 appears to miss it by 1 or two mph @ 65%, but can easily do it with a little more throttle.)

Best,