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I've been thinking about the fuel flow thing more and more lately.
And since I love analogies so much, I'm going to make another...
How many
of you know what the gas mileage of your car/SUV is? Not what the sticker
said when you bought it, but the actual mileage every time you fill up?
I'll venture that it is a relatively small percentage of you. In the
airplane world we seem to care a LOT more about fuel burn than we do in
cars. Why is that? Is it because our planes are weight and range
limited whereas, for all practical matters, our cars aren't?
I personally don't really care whether I burn 8 GPH or 9 GPH in
cruise. I'm not going to fuel plan that precisely. I can't. I
don't always know whether I will fly at 6,000' or 12,000' and that makes a WHOLE
lot larger difference in fuel planning than leaning. And just as in
the car, I'd land and fuel up if I got lower on fuel than expected on a
trip.
I'll
make a second venture - that the folks with FADEC don't care nor know as
much about fuel burn as others do. In fact, I'll bet they couldn't tell
you with anywhere near the level of accuracy that Walter or others out there
can. Why? Because we don't stare at the fuel burn gauge, just as you
couldn't care less about MPG of your SUV. It just doesn't matter. We
have a pretty good idea of burn rate, and that's good
enough.
Matt
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