Here’s a post in the “Unrelated” category. Today we got up early, drove to Camrose, Alberta by sunrise, got loaded and in the air by 9am, and flew to Kamloops BC, where we refueled the plane to full tanks, and had lunch with some relatives. We invited them flying, and took off in the early afternoon, flew to Sechelt, BC and stretched our legs, then flew up Sechelt inlet to look at oceanfront properties for sale, then flew back to Kamloops. Landing after 4pm, we found the Kamloops gas pumpers had gone home. I knew we could make it to Rocky Mountain House, where self-serve fuel is available, so we got flying by 5pm. Since we had Oxygen, we flew at altitude between 10,500 and 11,500.
The MVP fuel management screen had some very effective information to help the fuel economy. It constantly calculates miles per gallon, which helped me pick an altitude that gave maximum efficient use of the tailwind, which was about 10 to 13 knots.
I recall the morning’s westward flight over the rockies at 12,400 feet, against slight headwind, and the throttle was max, the mixture set rich-of-peak, and the fuel flow was 15.5 gal/hour. On the evening eastward journey with mild tailwind, I slowed the engine a bit to fuel flow of 14.5. When we reached Rocky Mountain House, the MVP monitor was able to tell me I had sufficient fuel to go all the way back to Camrose, so we called Edmonton Radio and changed our flight plan. So our total journey was 656 Nautical miles on that 1 gas fillup in Kamloops.
We landed at night with the 17 gallons left, and the MVP fuel management screen indicated it still had a reserve of 1 hour, so twas legal for night flight.
