Light-Sport Aircraft Yahoo group Re: Aircraft Payloads for comparison.

Hi Mike,

 

I agree it would be good to have some "apples to apples" comparsion numbers out there in the promotional ads and the official specs.

 

Similar to your wanting to see numbers that make it easy to compare how much it will cost in fuel to stay aloft,

it would be nice to see numbers comparing how much it would cost to fly a certain DISTANCE.

 

For example, my neighbor's ELSA uses about 4.5 gallons per hour at his typical cruise and mine only 2.5 per hour.

So clearly in terms of how much it costs to be up there doing rubber-necking or practicing technique I'm way ahead of him.

But in terms of flying from point A to B it takes me at my typical cruise of 75 mph 1.2 times as long to get there as him at 90mph.

If he drops down to 75mph he'd probably get 3.5 gallons per hour and my apparent advantage of fuel efficiency would not look as large as at first glance --   At least not when your object is getting from A to B.

 

So what I'd like to see  --- similar to your useful idea of "fuel for 1.5 hours while doing 70 mph".
would be "miles per gallon at 70 mph"

                "miles per gallon at 80 mph" etc

and         "miles per gallon at 75% power normal cruise"

 

It's also interesting to see ****miles per gallon*** as it allows a more intuitive comparision to weigh in on the question of "drive or fly there" as we're used to knowing our cars' milage.

 

My Skyranger calulates out as always in the range of 20 to 30 miles per gallon.

The big range of course is coming from what load (just feather weight me, or with a sumo wrestler on board) and what cruise speed.  And of course that doesn't figure in headwinds or tailwinds.

 

But miles per gallon does give a different and more familiar to most way to look at our fuel consumption,

and is easier for quick off-the-cuff estimates of "do I have adaquate fuel to reach point B which is 50 miles away" than gallons per hour.

 

> As someone suggested it would be nice if the pilot/passenger-payloads
> could be shown with some kind of -standard- amount of fuel so that
> the "large tank" airplanes don't appear to be at a disadvantage.
> Of course that would mean "agreeing on something"... the standard,
> and that's not likely to happen. ;-)
> eg; I'd suggest "fuel for 1.5 hours while doing 70 mph".
> (one hour training plus reserve)
>
>
> Mike
 

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