Longest flight in a piston single

I bet you could. Seriously. Try running at 30% or 40% power. You'll be amazed what it will do to your fuel burn. What does a PA28 hold? 48 gallons or so? I bet you could get the fuel burn down to 6 gph. That's 8 hours until you run dry.

I was only burning 10.6 gph in the 206 today. Considering it carries 87 gallons...you do the math. That's 7+ hours of flying, plus IFR reserves.

The only reason I picked on you is to prevent a ton of pilots (myself included) from dragging down the thread with their stories of flying 12 or 14 hours in a day, but taking fuel stops. Anybody can fly a bunch of hours if they're able to take breaks and refuel./QUOTE]

Good point. I never ran it at 30 or 40% but I'm sure I would be surprised. Well I didn't mean to take away from this thread, but I just thought I would add my two cents. Congrats for your flight today! :beer:
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That's a ridiculously long time to be sitting there without being able to get up and walk around. I think the longest leg I've done without getting up out of my seat was right around 4.0, and I was going crazy. Anything over about 2.5 hours in the Embraer would usually involve me heading back to use the lav, if not just to stretch my legs a bit. :)
 
jrh said:
I bet you could. Seriously. Try running at 30% or 40% power. You'll be amazed what it will do to your fuel burn. What does a PA28 hold? 48 gallons or so? I bet you could get the fuel burn down to 6 gph. That's 8 hours until you run dry.

I was only burning 10.6 gph in the 206 today. Considering it carries 87 gallons...you do the math. That's 7+ hours of flying, plus IFR reserves.

The only reason I picked on you is to prevent a ton of pilots (myself included) from dragging down the thread with their stories of flying 12 or 14 hours in a day, but taking fuel stops. Anybody can fly a bunch of hours if they're able to take breaks and refuel.
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It takes a lot of self-control to make that long of straight-through flights if there are actually places to stop for fuel en route... and self control to keep the throttle that low...

Every now and again I make the 172 ferry flight from the Conti US to Puerto Rico... it's long and it's boring...
 
My longest non-stop was from KFLG to KONY. I was trying to make it KADS, but I wasn't confident in my fuel load and diverted to Olney. The whole flight was 6.3, and the FLG to ONY leg was at least 5.3 of it.
 
Its been awhile, but my longest in a single was from Long Beach to Salt Lake in a Cirrus SR20. Around 4.5 hours if I remember. Longest GA flight was in a Seneca from Knoxville to Salt Lake. That was around 12 hours with a couple of fuel stops. I know lots of guys have gone much further than me in general aviation planes.
 
I did Albuquerque to Beatrice, NE in 5.5 last fall.

On my way there I landed at the halfway point and noticed I had a ton of fuel left, and that I was burning much less than the fuel flow I had planned initially. So I used my newly found fuel flow in the planning for the return trip and decided Beatrice would be the place to stop, instead of the halfway point.
 
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