On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 10:39:59 GMT, "Guy Byars"
wrote:

I just realized that my Skylane gets about the same gas mileage as a Hummer.
I burn about 13gal per hour and go about 130 knots... 10nm per gallon, or
11.5 miles per gallon. Now granted I am going in a straight line, and 3
times as fast, but still that is awful mileage. Now my old Cessna 140 did
a lot better, 105mph at 5gph... more like about 20 miles per gallon.

My 5.9L Durango gets about 13.5 avg statute mpg (mix of hwy + city).
My PA28-180 gets about 145 statute mph on 10gph = 14.5mpg, so the
plane gets better mileage than the truck. Too bad 100LL is $1.00
more expensive than 87 octane. (I just paid $4.04 last week, ouch).

Drag is proportional to speed squared, so the faster you go - the more
difficult it is to maintain a good mpg.

Having said this, many of the glass homebuilts have impressive drag
coefficients and as a result, fly fast on little gas. The Quickie
Q200 and Super Pulsar are both examples of planes that can approach
180mph on 6gph = 30mpg.

-Nathan