jeff trikeAerotrike Cobra 912, with a Rival-X wing.
1800 hrs as of January 2019
GPS Day 4
By jeff trike
Categories: Cross Country / XC
We continued down the Rio Puerco Valley to Belen. We landed around noon and the winds were still light at 8mph, but they would pick up later before we left the hangar. This ended up being my longest non-stop flight ever at 5.3 hours. My old record was a round trip to Chaco Canyon at 5.1 hrs back in 2005. What a great flight and trip! 25.5 hrs of flying time and 1329 miles in 4 days.
Here is my GPS track of the last days flight.
Comments
Wow 5 hours is huge. How much fuel left on board?
5.3 Hours !!! Wow!! That's very amazing for the middle of nowhere, but also occurred because of being in the middle of nowhere.
My longest non-stop flight was 4:03 and I had 4.9 gallons left. I did land once off airport to do a precautionary fill from a 5 gallon Turtle-Pak that I had on board (and frequently do that on airstrips along the way without fuel), so those legs were likely longer total distance but were not non-stop (likely around 6.5 hours). I know I've had to pee really bad on a couple long legs ;)
I think I could go longer than 5 hours, especially if I flew more slowly or tried to take advantage of natural lift sources-- but I really just plan on 4 hours being the extreme limit of time I want to sit.
I could work on some inflight refueling options like @GeorgeB and @CraigV and others have, but for me, I like panning for some stops, and my missions haven't required that I do that, or I haven't required / planned that my missions do that ;) It is a huge planning, and constant mental challenge to fly flights like that without risking fuel starvation-- That's just astounding you've been able to do that in a place with so few options and such dynamic weather (micro & macro). A fuel computer helps a lot, but only goes so far-- your brain has to go much longer distance.
@Jeff_Trike , Really interested to hear how do you manage your fuel. I bet many many others here are as well.
How 'bout this In-Air refueling in a trike at 5,000 feet done by @Ttabs ?
http://alltrikes.com/elgg/photos/image/30149/in-air-refueling-at-5000-in-a-trike
I landed with 6 gallons in my tank.
I have a MGL FF1 fuel computer with flow sensor. It is set up conservatively, so it always reads a little low. I also have a sight gauge on my trike which I can read until I get down to 3 gallons. So as long as I can see a reading on the sight gauge, I know I have at least 3 gallons, or an hour of flying time left.
Wow, that sounds like you have almost 25 gallons of fuel available in the trike !!??
I have a 21 gal tank and average 3gal/hr. If I am lightly loaded in calm air I burn less than than 2gal/hr.
Wow, that's huge- what kind of trike again? My Tanarg has a 17 gal tank- it's good for over 5 hours at cruise. If I'm planning on a 4 hour trip, I feel much better if I take an additional 5 in the Turtle-Pak-- that way, when the weatherman gets it wrong (AGAIN !!!) and my 4 hour leg turns into a 6 hour trip, there's no worries.
I use the MGL fuel computer in the Enigma, very similar to your MGL fuel computer, and adjusted it as you did (slightly conservative- amazing how accurate it is). Really helps with crunching the math, so you can focus on piloting, weather and options (given your data). The Tanarg has an inflight visible sight gauge as well- would be nervous without.