On 16-Feb-2004, (One's Too Many) wrote:

Best single engine small personal plane with greatest range?

Since you'll be doing your travelling over fairly low terrain, no
serious mountains, I'd say either a 150hp Lycoming O-320 equipped
Beech Musketeer (60 gallons fuel) or a 150hp Piper Cherokee 140 (50
gallons fuel). These two planes are both comfortable, and are flying
gas tanks.


Not even close. Both of these fine planes burn about 8 GPH to go at most
115 kts (and probably less). That comes out to 14.375 nm/gal. In the
Musketeer, with 60 gallons of fuel, absolute range is thus an impressive 862
nm.

BUT: an Arrow III or IV will burn about 9 GPH (at 65% power) and deliver 135
kts, or 15 nm/gal. With 72 gallons (usable) of fuel, absolute range is 1080
nm.

Because drag increases at about the cube of speed, the general expectation
is that slow airplanes with big fuel tanks (as in the Rutan Voyager) will
have the greatest range. But the drag reduction of retractable gear (and
the injected vs. carbureted engine) of the Arrow provides greater efficiency
than 150 HP fixed gear airplanes despite its substantially greater speed.

--
-Elliott Drucker