NetHeads, I got about six hours in this weekend, flying around the patch Friday afternoon, visiting my father in LA (Lower Alabama) on Saturday, and then another round of local fun late today. The overall average for the LA trip was about 40 mpg, but I was getting 49 mpg on the way down with a true airspeed of 161 mph, running pretty far lean of peak EGTs on 93 octane autofuel, throttled back to a leisurely 2980 rpm . The "turning base photo" is at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/flights/090131027m.jpg. The grass runway is right in the middle of the picture. On the way out the folks that own the land next door to my father's place were there watching the takeoff, so I couldn't help but come around for a 220 mph pass down the runway. Man, what a hoot that was!
Today I did some "engine quit on takeoff" tests. On the first takeoff I chopped the throttle to idle at 500' AGL after a 100 mph climbout, and made it back over the threshold with about 100' of altitude. I tried two more after that at 400' and didn't make it. Then I did three more at 500' and progressively got better. On the last one I had at least 150' when I came back over the end of the runway. This was with calm wind, so with any kind of headwind on takeoff, I could do even better. I wouldn't use these numbers unless you have a huge engine out front though. Best way to figure it out for your plane is do the testing! The last picture of the day was http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/flights/09020115m.jpg ... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
