Ever wonder how long you can stay airborne on 104oz? well...I had that privelage today.

An Olympus will consume 104oz in 8 airborne minutes. you can probably add 3 minutes of on the deck, put the stupid hatches on and taxi into position time. but no kidding time starts at brake release and 8 minutes later you WILL flame out.

how do I know??? well..I had a break down in my habit pattern and failed to completely fuel my airplane. nobody's fault but my own.

ripped off all but 2 gear doors on my Hornet but through sheer luck there was no other major damage done to my bird. I will be gutting it to determine the actual extent of the damage but so far it looks like a CA jig saw puzzle.

It's my understanding that a P200 consumes fuel at roughly the same rate. 1/2 throttle throughout 90% of the flight time. So, if you're a P200 owner now you have a rough idea how much play time you have.

However the Model airplane Angels were looking out for me because my flight path on impact had me narrowly missing a 4x4 post and a smaller sign by mere feet. dumb luck for sure.

Moral of the story? check, recheck then recheck again air, fuel, gear and radio range prior to flying especially if you haven't flown that particular airplane for some time.

good luck

buck

I said it today and I'll say it again - you are one of the luckiest b@stards I have had the pleasure to fly with!

That was real heads-up thinking, great job getting the gear up and straightened out before touchdown. 5 more seconds and you'd have been OK, at least the Aviation Gods were only trying to teach us a lesson! [&o]

barry

yup, we were lucky today.

stripped one flap servo JR 8231, broke the servo arm on the aileron JR 8411 and ripped cracked all the doors.

depending on how the next two weeks go I just might be able to take it to Waco. the fuse is in great shape just got to reglue nearly all of the hinges and fill / reinforce the cracks. otherwise not that bad.

we'll see.

thanks for the help.

buck

lol,

this reminds me of a flight i had on the MB339 i used to have (P80 power ) .. I had just redid a lot of the internals on the plane, and as it was late, decided to run up the engine and taxi test it ... i only filled 15 - 20 oz of my 85 oz tank ...

anyway, on the 2nd taxi pass, i got a gust of wind, and airborn pretty high .. only thing to do was a go around ... so with very conservative throttle management i took the plane into the pattern to go around for landing ... i had my friend telling me to gun the throttle more, but little did he know i was running on no fuel as the plane came in on final, 20' off the ground the turbine quit, and the plane had a perfect landing .... this was the a very fortunate conincidence that i had just enough fuel to go around .. if it quit 20 sec earlier, i would have been in trouble ...


anyway, i never light up at the field unless the tanks are full ( or if the wings are not atatched )


Wojtek