Ross Richardson wrote:
I have a 180hp (C/S prop) C-172F with the lyc O-360 and I burn and plan
on 9 gph. Why are you at 11? I run 2300 rpm and 22". I believe that give
me 9 gph.

I rounded up a bit -- sorry. 22/23 is 65% (book is 8.8GPH). We usually
run 23/24 (75% -- for obvious reasons) and burn 10.6GPH block to block
(0.6GPH over book). If we fly low and don't lean as aggressively, we
can easily see 11.5GPH block to block. And we can't run LOP due to the
carb. My kingdom for a fuel-injected, flow-balanced engine like that in
the Bo.

The biggest slap in the face is that even with the benefits of the CS
prop we don't go as fast as the fixed pitch 172R/SP because the stupid
old-school STOL kit with leading edge cuff destroys the cruise
performance of the wing. If we could just lose that and put some vortex
generators on it we'd get the same low-speed performance without the
cruise penalty and then we'd have a solid 125-130K airplane. Still slow
as sh!t but an improvement.

At one point I thought seriously about paying to get the kit removed
because it causes other issues related to low-speed performance when
combined with the heavy CS prop, etc., but then I came to my senses.
Every $1000 we spend on this pig is $1000 less I have to invest in a
real airplane built for real traveling.

Sorry for the rant. Can you tell I'm tired of flying low-tech airplanes
going 115KTAS? :-) I think I'm beginning to understand why small GA is
dying. If you're going to pay as much as we do to fly an airplane
(particularly in relation to fuel), it better damn well perform like a jet.

-Doug

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Doug Vetter, ATP/CFI

http://www.dvatp.com
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