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Longest range RV

Latest world record around the world

https://www.6zqpilot.com/

I think a bunch of us followed Bill Harrelson's flight late last year around the world. I never had any desire to do anything like this but it was fun to follow him as he flew.
 
Has anyone checked Jon's RV for HS forward spar flange cracks? :p (It's in the South Australian Aviation Museum at Port Adelaide if anyone wants to take along a flashlight and an inspection mirror) - mark
Fuel in the wing (weight) relieves wing (lift) stress!!! :D :D :D

The issue is always CG. The RV has reserve lift obviously.
 
2-3 hrs usually sees me out in my 8, at my age the body says enough is enough, 4 hrs endurance + Res is way more than I need, me takes me hat off to those that sit there that long!
 
Oil

A little thread drift here, but I am curious with J.J's 35 hour endurance in the 4 and the trans-ocean 7000NM Comanche flights was there any need or provision for adding engine oil in flight? The odd 320 will go 25 -30 hours per quart of oil but over vast expanses of ocean you would not want a leak to develop.
 
Commanche

As far as I know Max Conrad did not have any extra oil in the 180,250 or
twin Commanche.
250 was Casablanca to Los Angeles, !80 Casablanca to El Paso, TC Capetown to St Petersburg FL. Max was halfway from east coast of FL to New Orleans or maybe further when everything ahead went zero zero and he turned around and landed in St Pete.
 
Anyone (RV-8) using the collapsible aux fuel bladder in the rear seat ? Where and how does it connect to the fuel system? Is it gravity feed? Or, do you have to burn off a wing tank, then transfer via aux pump?
 
Maybe a bit offtopic but I always wonder if those guys stay awake all the time or if they nap on autopilot.

I mean 24hrs is a long time to stay awake but feasible. But everything else is really stretching the luck in my opinion.

Personally I only have experience with the Solarimpulse Aircraft and we managed to get a certification for the solo pilot on board to sleep but we needed guys on the ground to check the instruments and wake the pilot up in case something deteriorated. And still we had a monitoring and alerting system which constantly checked the parameters as well if we would have had a telemetry failure.

But just sleeping and trusting the autopilot needs a special set of balls..


I remember one flight where we flew from New York to Seville and the Pilot could not sleep for more than 30hrs as the conditions were not calm enough to do so and when it calmed down we had to change the databases on the G3X (one source of the monitoring and alerting system).. I was the guy on the ground talking the pilot through the needed steps but he was really a bit banana...
 
Is This A Goof Idea?

Yves, you raise a great point. It seems to me that we?ve reached a point where we can fly far longer than we ever ?need? to, except to prove that we can endure longer than the last guy. It?s an interesting engineering exercise, but doesn?t it seem like practicing bleeding?
 
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