NetHeads, Today I flew down to the other end of the state to buy a car for the kids. My wife came along to be part of the process, and to drive it back if we bought it. It was a gorgeous flying day, but with tailwinds around 35 mph at 9500' on the way down, and similar headwinds for the trip back. We left a little late and I ran it nearly wide open for the trip down, and since I was racing against sunset for the return trip, I did run it wide open on the trip back.
We bought the car, and she drove it back while I flew. Bottom line is I did 520 miles at nearly wide open throttle, at an average speed way over my usual 160 mph "economy" cruise, and still landed with 6 gallons of fuel left over. That's still in the low thirties as far as MPG goes (not my usual ~40 mpg), but it was a quick trip both ways for me, and I still beat the Volkswagen's MPG by twenty percent, not to mention I made it home three hours earlier than she did. I got another nice sunset picture Friday night. See the one at the top of http://www.n56ml.com/sunsets/ . It's "unreal" looking... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
