Yesterday, our RV had better gas-mileage than a Toyota hybrid car...

Hi guys.

Just want to tell you a little "gas-mileage" story from yesterday: Cecilia and me flew up to the lake Strandefjorden by the community Fagernes (try a search on Google Map) for lunch.

Every winter, they clear a strech for snow on the ice-covered fjord and last week, the runway opened for the season.

The winds where from the north, so the trip up there took us 1 hour. Home again, we used 40 (!) minutes.

Homebound, flying at 55% power (21"/2100) at 6500', Wilco had a FF of 21 litres/hr with 135 KIAS and that's pretty good.
Due to the northern winds, we had a GS of 175-185 KTS all the way home.
Thus; we had a gas-mileage at cruise which was about 33% BETTER than the mileage Cecilia gets with her Toyota Prius hybrid car...! (normally that's around 0.55 litres/10 km during winter)

PS: Normally, the Wilco-numbers are pretty good as they are: 55% power gives us around 0,8 litres/10 km (equals a normal-size car) but yesterday the numbers where 0,38/10 km... Tailwinds and low OAT's did the trick... (The AFS-3500 showed approx 14,0 - 14,5 NM/liter)

Soooo..... who ever said that airplanes wasn't energy-efficient??
Next time, someone argues with me about that subject, I'll use the above numbers!

Anyway; Fagernes is a small community; we found 5 (!) places to eat within 150-200 metres (that was the whole length of their "main street"), a very nice hotelbuilding (we didn't go in), a police station, (nope; we didn't go in there either) a bus station (didn't need no bus to go home) and that was it....

The last time I was there, was in the mid -70's. That time I was there during Easter, flying sailplanes off the ice. Strange to be back again after so many years... not to mention that I this time flew in with an airplane me and some friends have built ourselves....

Here's a few pics:

Here we are at 4500' northbound:





Here we've just landed and parked:



Note the trusty old Mercedes truck with the snowplow in the backgroud. It's been a while since I saw one of these. They just don't make trucks like these anymore...




Here's "main street":





Here's the nice old hotel-building:




They just don't make buildings like these anymore either. Too costly to build, too costly to maintain and that's just too bad...




Here we are ready to go home again:





Here, we are at 6500' homebound enjoying the fading light as the sun approaches the horizon:






We're smiling because.... well.... life with a flying RV is gooood...!






As usual, Cecilia was doing the flying while I was toying around with the camera:




PS: I know that the above numbers aren't that special. It's just a matter of knowing where the favorable winds are and slow down in tailwinds.
It was just a little lunch-trip. As a bonus, we got to enjoy the nice numbers when we played along with "Mother Nature"...

Hope I did my math right too... ;-)


Anyway; hope you enjoyed this little story from winter-Norway...

Nice write-up, Alf! Thanks for posting it. I'm really fascinated by the pictures as well as the story behind them. It's great to see what kind of flying goes on "up north" with an RV.

One question, what kind of temperatures are you seeing at altitude, and also on the ground? It looks awfully cold.

Absolutely gorgeous pictures!

....but my head hurt, trying to convert litres/kilo to MPG is not easy....anyway, it doesn't really matter...only that you beat the Toyota

FWIW, a friend of mine is a 777 driver and he said they burn 4,000 lbs/hour..or 571 gallons per hour!! on the trip to Johannesburg from Atlanta.

At first look, it seems awfully wasteful but consider this: In one hour, he travels 500 miles with 300 souls aboard, more or less, which equates to 150,000 passenger miles per 571 gallons, or 262 passenger MPG.!! If you and your wife travel 185 miles on 9.5 gallons, that's 370~9.5= 38.9 passenger miles per gallon....shows how fuel efficient the big guys really are. My RV-10, with 4 souls aboard, doing 185 miles in an hour at 12 GPH, running LOP, yields 61.66 passenger MPG...even better

Best,

Conversions

That sure is a beautiful country. I did some gph/mph conversions [in bold below], impressive numbers!

ao.frog said:

Homebound, flying at 55% power (21"/2100) at 6500', Wilco had a FF of 21 litres/hr [5.55 gph] with 135 KIAS and that's pretty good.
Due to the northern winds, we had a GS of 175-185 KTS all the way home.
Thus; we had a gas-mileage at cruise which was about 33% BETTER than the mileage Cecilia gets with her Toyota Prius hybrid car...! (normally that's around 0.55 litres/10 km [42.8mpg] during winter)

PS: Normally, the Wilco-numbers are pretty good as they are: 55% power gives us around 0,8 litres/10 km [29.4mpg] (equals a normal-size car) but yesterday the numbers where 0,38/10 km [61.9mpg]... Tailwinds and low OAT's did the trick... (The AFS-3500 showed approx 14,0 - 14,5 NM/liter [53.0-54.9 mpg])

Click to expand...

-jon

Winter Ops-Great Mileage

A.O.Frog:

Nice photos!

I see you are running with wheel pants in those conditions. Are you having any problems with snow loading them up?

I am trying to screw up the courage to operate on a similar but narrow runway, otherwise I will have to take up another hobby until Spring.

Any tips for your ops on your snow will be appreciated. Thanks.

Mike Bauer
N918MB RV6

pierre smith said:

....but my head hurt, trying to convert litres/kilo to MPG is not easy....anyway, it doesn't really matter...only that you beat the Toyota

FWIW, a friend of mine is a 777 driver and he said they burn 4,000 lbs/hour..or 571 gallons per hour!! on the trip to Johannesburg from Atlanta.

At first look, it seems awfully wasteful but consider this: In one hour, he travels 500 miles with 300 souls aboard, more or less, which equates to 150,000 passenger miles per 571 gallons, or 262 passenger MPG.!! If you and your wife travel 185 miles on 9.5 gallons, that's 370~9.5= 38.9 passenger miles per gallon....shows how fuel efficient the big guys really are. My RV-10, with 4 souls aboard, doing 185 miles in an hour at 12 GPH, running LOP, yields 61.66 passenger MPG...even better

Best,

Click to expand...

I think your 777 friend's numbers are a little low. And by a little I mean a lot.

Well...he said they even have 'autothrottle'...

...that's tied to the computer and they're set by the computer to optimize fuel mileage, since the bird's that thirsty....that, and it's an 18 hour flight

I have no personal knowledge of any fuel burns on the big iron, other than what I was told.

Best,

Red Suits

And Alf...what are those scary red suits you all are wearing? Looks like something made for the survival of the Titanic.

Here's...

... some answers to your questions:

Temps we see: (all temps in Celcius)

That day it was -5* on ground at Rygge (our home airport) and -11* at Fagernes.
Airborne, there was an inversion, so at 4500', it was -1* and at 6500 it was 0'.

Normally we don't fly if it's below -10* on ground because the cockpit gets somewhat chilly when airborne and at altitude.
We have flown in OAT's at -20* and if you as you dress right, it's ok for flights up to two hours.

We normally fly with the red suits during winter because it can be a BIG temp-change when you climb out of the warm cockpit and onto the ice. Specially when it's a wind blowing.

The red suits are also a nice thing to have on schould we ever have to make an emergency landing somewhere.
As you can see on the pics, there can be a log walk to find people sometimes....
Then it's important to have something warm and visible.
If you decide to wait by the plane to be rescued, then there's definetely important to have warm and visible clothing.



Mike; here's what I've found for snow-ops:

Normally the weel pants schould be off during winter. In temps around 0* (freezing point), the pants and brakes can fill up with slush in seconds. Then the brakes can freeze up and the pants can be damaged too.

The only exception is when the temps are well below freezing, you have a long runway (so you don't have to use the brakes) and the runway has hard, dry and compact snow.
Under those circumstances, you can have the pants on if you check them for snow build-up after every landing.

Operating on snow is really much better than asphalt. As long as the temps are well below freezing (-5* and colder), it's like operating off grass: much easier, specially in crosswind and with a TD.
In low temps, the braking action is ok too.

Ofcourse the runway has to be nice and smooth too. (no frozen ruts and ridges) I always call for the actual runway state before we're going somewhere.

Winter-flying is really nice and adds a whole new dimension to flying.
The air is calm, the visibility is great and the engine has great performance. And no bugs to wipe off after landing either.

Ofcourse the weather can be a challenge, but as long as you pick your flying days carefully regarding the weather, have several backup plans, lots of fuel and do good planning, then winter-flying is very rewarding.

So Mike; talk to some of the pilots in your area, get some local info and fire up that RV!

And them Lycosaurs schould be flown for at least 30 minutes every two weeks anyway, so it's a win-win situation.

Winter Ops---PANTS OFF !!

A.O. Thanks for your experience with pants on or off...and the rest !

Yesterday it melted down to a nice plowed gravel-ice mix, and as soon as it gets up today to freezing and the tailwheel can dig in a little, I'm polishing the chrome a little. With my pants off.

You are an inspiration to me up there, as are our other Northerners.

Thanks!

Montanamike RV6 N918MB
Moderate Winter on the Hay Farm

great mileage, less filling!

I imagine you have to flight plan for round trip tankage, or is there somewhere on the ice where you can buy boat gas in an emergency?

Nice to see you are thinking of survival outside the cockpit...I'm also curious what you are required to carry, and what you actually have on board for survival gear? ( I'm thinking of the Canadian 'sparsely settled areas' regulations or their equivalent)

sorry, not trying to hijack the thread, a great and inspiring story to get out for winter flying!

I too took my pants off at annual, and will re-install in the spring...but I did leave on the nose wheelpant for various reasons, and check it frequently for buildup ( although that's not very easy!)

Rygge

Hey Alf,
I see you are based at Rygge. You may have seen the 3 RNoAF falcon 20s, 041, 053, 0125. I work on those airplanes when they come to the states. Always fun talking to the crews.

Norge RV-7

Alf,

It's always so great to read your posts and to see the pictures of your beautiful country. My maternal grandparents emigrated to the states from Norway. I visited once in 1971 at Christmas time and will always remember how friendly the people were. Keep the good news coming!

Best Wishes,

John Thach

ccccccold...

Wonderful writeup Alf, great pics too! I have a good buddy in Bergen, flew choppers to the rigs for about 30 years.

Can't sell me on the joys of winter flying I'm afraid, been there, done that for many years in Canada... now in Florida for the winter, I don't think the locals appreciate how fabulous they have it for the winter months!!! Best flying weather you can imagine.

Lovely machine you have too!

Kokes

Great story!

pierre smith said:

FWIW, a friend of mine is a 777 driver and he said they burn 4,000 lbs/hour..or 571 gallons per hour!!

Click to expand...

I guess he had still a jet lag
With a B737-800 we burn around 2400kg=5300lbs=3000liter=790USG (185 passengers) A B777 consumes about 13000lbs/hr.

Flying on snow is great also with a commercial airliner at least when the temperature is below freezing. I found the next two movies of myself on youtube (Yeahhhh!). It's a flight to Kjevik/Kritiansand in Norway. Runway is covered with ice and the temperature is just above freezing. When we started the flight to Kjevik the braking action was poor. When we arrived at Kjevik it was just above medium and with that just good enough for landing (runway is "just" 1850 meters/6000ft so no flaring).
Landing at Kjevik with a B737-400
Takeoff (check the blast with snow/ice starting at 50")

In my eyes Norway is the most beautiful country in Europe! Try a winter vacation in Gala with temperatures of -25C/-13F and you will never miss Florida anymore in winter

Green, Go Hybrid

[Removed non-aviation related text; S. Buchanan]