k9medic
Line Up and Wait
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2018
- Messages
- 920
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ATP-H, CMEL, CSEL, CFI/CFII Airplanes and Helicopters
I had a serious conversation with my airplane partner this past Sunday. We love our Cherokee 6/260 as it does exactly what we want it to do - Fly to/from the Bahamas.
On Saturday, I was making a run over with supplies as was a friend of mine. He flies a C210. I saw him on the ADS-B readout and he was cruising along at 160kts. I was slugging through the air at 128kts. This got me to thinking - do we (I) need a faster plane?
My partner is not opposed to changing airframes but we need to keep it in budget. We got into our 6/260 for a great price and made some improvements so it's vref is about $75K.
Real world numbers for the 6/260 are $1500 for average annual. Fuel is 13gph @ 128kts. We charge ourselves $50/ hour MX setback. This last flight over cost me $663 in gas and mx setback.
Normal flight is 335nm one way. AT 128kts. that comes out to 2.7 hours on the tach. If I could decrease the transit time it might offset the higher operating costs.
For example, the Aztec POH hows an intermediate cruise speed of 181kts burning 27 gph. That would be approximately 50 gallons burned on the trip over compared to 35 gallons in the 6/260, so I would see an increase in fuel cost of about $120 for the round trip
How would this compare in real world numbers for the Aztec, 210 or Lance/Saratoga?
On Saturday, I was making a run over with supplies as was a friend of mine. He flies a C210. I saw him on the ADS-B readout and he was cruising along at 160kts. I was slugging through the air at 128kts. This got me to thinking - do we (I) need a faster plane?
My partner is not opposed to changing airframes but we need to keep it in budget. We got into our 6/260 for a great price and made some improvements so it's vref is about $75K.
Real world numbers for the 6/260 are $1500 for average annual. Fuel is 13gph @ 128kts. We charge ourselves $50/ hour MX setback. This last flight over cost me $663 in gas and mx setback.
Normal flight is 335nm one way. AT 128kts. that comes out to 2.7 hours on the tach. If I could decrease the transit time it might offset the higher operating costs.
For example, the Aztec POH hows an intermediate cruise speed of 181kts burning 27 gph. That would be approximately 50 gallons burned on the trip over compared to 35 gallons in the 6/260, so I would see an increase in fuel cost of about $120 for the round trip
How would this compare in real world numbers for the Aztec, 210 or Lance/Saratoga?
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