John and Randy, what were the speeds and fuel burns you were seeing on your recent ferry flights?
Thanks!
A couple things about my plane.
1. It had clean paint and fresh wax on it, probably smoothed out all the rivets. 2. It has wheel pants, and leg fairings.
3. It has an aux 6.5 gal fuel tank and fuel pump in it, adding about another 80 minutes of range on the normal 210 minutes, for 290 minutes, almost 5 hours.
Less time going up and down to 8000 ft or doing fillups, if weather cooperates and your bladder does too.
4. Ferry kept it at or under 5200-5250 rpm.
Probably very close to 110 kts TAS, IAS was always in the green and pretty far under the max 108kts for smooth air, much of trip from Jackson county TX to KWHP was flow at from 8500 to 10,500 ft. The plane and temps were cooler up there, air was more calm, and whatever the prop was set it moved the plane quite well at those elevations and density altitudes. Midland Texas to Casa Grande, AZ was bumpy, rough, slow going.
I believe my pilot/ ferry, averaged 4.8 to 4.9 GPH. Some fuel was saved not climbing every 3 hours instead to almost 5, if the inexpensive fuel stops allowed it, also less fuel lost doing taxi work and warm ups / run ups.
I'd be more inclined to budget closer to 5.5 gallons an hour, depends on how aggressive the ferry you hire is.
There are trade offs... you might be better off slowing the plane down 10 to 12 kts of ground speed for lower GPH, and go farther between fuel ups, saving more time because you increased your range enough by going a bit slower, to save a pit stop.
What I can say is that there were a lot of benefits if you could get up to elevations from 7500 ft and up, and your plane is pitched for it. IMHO, the plane seems to gain efficiencies up there, lessened drag and better airspeed. I am of the belief that those main gear fairings and the wheel pants and the pant for the front landing strut are worth a lot, cumulatively, going cross country, quite a bit more, if you throttle back a bit, and save the fuel, going farther between fuel ups. The wheel pants and leg fairings are nice additions to have, if you do longer trips.
The plane out of Yuba City did not have wheel pants or leg fairings. Might be 7 or 8 kts lost, due to that. But highly probable that they had hefty tail winds through the north west, this time of year, all the way to Ohio.