: Apples and oranges. The six seaters are made with some pretty big gas
: tanks which provides a tremendous amount of flexibility. A better
: comparison is to fill the six seater with your max gas in the warrior
: and then do the comparison. You will then see the six seater kills your
: bird.
:
: (fill with max gas in terms of range/endurance, not gallons).

: HUH, what???

What he's trying to say is that the "full fuel payload" is not necessarily a
good metric to compare different aircraft. It's much more useful to compare payload
for a specific mission. Some planes (like a friend's Piper Comanche) can hold 90
gallons of fuel, while it only burns 12-14 gph. Comparing the "full fuel payload" of
that aircraft to a 180 hp Mooney isn't a fair comparison, even though the speed is
similar.

Now, consider how much payload can be carried in aircraft A vs. aircraft B for
a 400nm cross-country flight. That's more fair. That's also one of the big reasons
why we chose to get a PA-28-180 instead of a Cessna 150 or even a 172. Having 50
gallons of fuel in a plane that burns 8.5 at 65% allows for lots of flexibility.

-Cory

--

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* Cory Papenfuss, Ph.D., PPSEL-IA *
* Electrical Engineering *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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