A couple of days ago, it was time to visit some friends in Denmark.
A high-pressure ridge had formed for a couple of days, making the weather suitable along the route, so off we went.
We wanted to fly over water as little as possible, so from our homebase Rygge in SE corner of Norway, we followed the SW coast of Sweden southwards.
Then, abeam Gothenborg, we turned SW, flew along the Danish island "Læsø" which have small airport, then onto the Danish mainland.
Then finally down to our destination "Varde" which is a small uncontrolled airport, it has two intersecting grass strips and it's situated slightly northwest of the city Billund.
Here's our route and how it would've been on a direct track:
The difference in flying time beetween those two tracks where only 5-10 minutes, so the choice of route wasn't difficult.
I estimate that it was only for about 10 minutes over the water east of Læsø we couldn't have glided on to land if we had a engine failure.
We flew down at FL 100 using my favorite powersetting which is 55% power.
With that setting, our FF is about 22-23 litres/hr (equals 5,8-6,1 gls/hr) and gives a KIAS of 120-130, depending on weight.
At that altitude, the TAS is good and we even had a little tailwind, making the GS even better.
Here we are cruising happily along at FL 100 towards Gothenburg:
Upon landing, after 1:50 flight time, we where met by a welcoming comittee and taken to their home.
We spent a nice day there, and I even flew a one hour local flight with a pilot from the local aeroclub.
We flew both sightseeing and aerobatics and then landed again.
In the early evening, it was time to go back home and we landed at Rygge about 30 minutes before the darkness, after 2:05 minute flight, having alittle headwind during the cruise home.
When we landed, we had about 30 litres in the tanks and that is about 1:20 minutes of flying.
Our RV never stops to amaze me:
We started out with full fueltanks; 160 litres, flew across most of southwest Scandinavia, flew a local sightseeing/acro-flight and then back home to Rygge again, and we never had to refuel....
Flying at 55% power, leaned to 50*LOP, these little machines sure have some range....
At the same time, you can have all the fun you want flying acro and using short grass strips too.
And all this you're doing in a small plane you've built in your garage...
I sure am glad I kept pounding them rivets a while back...
A high-pressure ridge had formed for a couple of days, making the weather suitable along the route, so off we went.
We wanted to fly over water as little as possible, so from our homebase Rygge in SE corner of Norway, we followed the SW coast of Sweden southwards.
Then, abeam Gothenborg, we turned SW, flew along the Danish island "Læsø" which have small airport, then onto the Danish mainland.
Then finally down to our destination "Varde" which is a small uncontrolled airport, it has two intersecting grass strips and it's situated slightly northwest of the city Billund.
Here's our route and how it would've been on a direct track:
The difference in flying time beetween those two tracks where only 5-10 minutes, so the choice of route wasn't difficult.
I estimate that it was only for about 10 minutes over the water east of Læsø we couldn't have glided on to land if we had a engine failure.
We flew down at FL 100 using my favorite powersetting which is 55% power.
With that setting, our FF is about 22-23 litres/hr (equals 5,8-6,1 gls/hr) and gives a KIAS of 120-130, depending on weight.
At that altitude, the TAS is good and we even had a little tailwind, making the GS even better.
Here we are cruising happily along at FL 100 towards Gothenburg:
Upon landing, after 1:50 flight time, we where met by a welcoming comittee and taken to their home.
We spent a nice day there, and I even flew a one hour local flight with a pilot from the local aeroclub.
We flew both sightseeing and aerobatics and then landed again.
In the early evening, it was time to go back home and we landed at Rygge about 30 minutes before the darkness, after 2:05 minute flight, having alittle headwind during the cruise home.
When we landed, we had about 30 litres in the tanks and that is about 1:20 minutes of flying.
Our RV never stops to amaze me:
We started out with full fueltanks; 160 litres, flew across most of southwest Scandinavia, flew a local sightseeing/acro-flight and then back home to Rygge again, and we never had to refuel....
Flying at 55% power, leaned to 50*LOP, these little machines sure have some range....
At the same time, you can have all the fun you want flying acro and using short grass strips too.
And all this you're doing in a small plane you've built in your garage...
I sure am glad I kept pounding them rivets a while back...
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