Posted for "Matt Hapgood" <hapgoodm94@alum.darden.edu>:

 Hi Walter.  I'll take that beer.
 
 I guess the biggest difference between your situation and mine is:
 
 1.  My range is rarely limited by fuel (I carry over 5 hours worth) - the
 bladder and personal comfort is my limiting range.  If I want to increase
 range for a really long flight, I just increase altitude and I can go for
 much longer than I care to be in the air (7 hours).
 
 2.  In a normally aspirated engine, 0.2 GPH is less than the altitude change
 from 8,000 to 9,000 feet.  It's so rare I actually get my assigned altitude
 that, again, forecasting to 0.2 GPH just doesn't make any sense.  Instead of
 forecasting an 8.1 GPH burn I'd rather forecast 9 GPH burn.  I still carry
 4.5 hours of fuel plus 1 hour reserve (longer than I want to be in the air).
 If I need more range, I'll plan a higher altitude - NOT a lower fuel burn.
 That's how I'd complete my mission.   Because sure as I forecast 8.1 GPH and
 take on starting fuel according to that estimate, I'll get assigned a lower
 altitude, fight a stronger headwind, or get a screwy routing... all of which
 would cause me to SCRUB the mission.
 
 So as I see it, planning to a much tighter GPH would actually cause me to
 scrub more missions than it would enable me to achieve.
 
 Matt
 
 (and I said I was done with typing on this subject...).
 
 

"""
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