Thread: Max flying in a day

What's the greatest number of hours that you feel comfortable flying in a CTsw in a day? I've flown 6 hours and would probably fly more in the right circumstance, but that's a lot of flying in a small plane in a day.

Hi Wlfpkrs,

That question really doesn't have a good answer. I will depend on each pilot. So long as you aren't tired and feeling OK then 9,12,15 hrs may not be a problem for some pilots. Never being in a hurry makes the flight more enjoyable which is why most of us fly, to enjoy our adventure.

Roger is right. When I was younger and not as bright, I flew a C206 from Montana to Anchorage in one day. 14 hobbs hours. I didn't have the aches and pains I have today but it wasn't real smart. In order to do that in a plane like the 206 or the CT is going to involve a 16-17 hour day. Mental alertness, judgement and reaction time goes out the window. I remember that when I started the last leg of that trip out of Whitehorse I was feeling pretty good. By the time I fought weather and made detours I was not real sharp when I got to Anchorage. In my favor was that it was summer and even though I landed at 11:00 p.m. it was daylight.

Everyone probably needs to do something similar once just sto say they did it. But, fatigue creeps up on you and has been responsible for many accidents. A better day is to get up early after a good nights sleep, fly 3-4 hours, have lunch, then do it again then stop. 6 to 8 hours total. For us older guys, that may be too much.

For me personally I will only fly 6-8 hobbs time. I land every 2-2.5 hours for a quick break or lunch.

Two 3-4 hour legs per day works well for me at age 57, but my wife likes to stop more often. With her aboard we might fly 3 2-hour legs in a day. - WF

Our bladder determines my flight leg lengths. Sometimes it might be only 1.5 hrs.

Come on guys, we need to do better... I see where a Aviat Husky was just flown for 15 continuous hours on one tank. 3.1 gallons per hour. 'set some sort of record. Using the most economical settings, what do you think a CT could do????

Tim

ps - no problems with bladder here, but my butt got numb just thinking about it.

Tim - let us know when you do it.

Speaking of sore butts, I got tired of waiting for Oregon Aero and Flight Design to get together to beef up the seat padding - and had a local upholsterer make up a couple portable cushions. I haven't used them yet on a long flight yet, but Mrs. Wlfpckrs and I did use them on a 3.5-hour round-trip Saturday. First impressions - heavenly! They are pretty beefy with a dense center cushion glued between two softer, thinner cushions on each side.

I had these made in preparation for our 14-hour round-trip to the Bahamas last week, which we had to postpone because of the storms down there.

When I bought my CT2k, C-ICEY, I picked it up in Toronto, Ontario and flew it with a good friend 1900 miles to Nelson British Columbia, it took 17 hours over two days, headwinds all the way. Across rugged northern Ontario bearing along the north shores of the sprawling Great Lakes, across wild and seemingly endless boreal forest and lakeland, and 500' over the startlingly beautiful and equally endless autumn prairies, culminating in a spectacular crossing of the Southern Canadian Rockies to our new home in the rugged Selkirk mountains around Nelson.

five hundred hours later, I still love it!

Thank you Flight Designs. Thank you Ernst. What a fantastic little exploration platform.

mike glatiotis
nelson bc