No, we sure didn't.  In fact, I like going faster than my wallet can keep up.

Yeah; me tooJ

 

In doing some searching for LDmax for the Lancair ES, I read the statement that best economy would be the same as best glide.  That makes sense to me.  Probably close enough for our purposes.  What say you?  

I found my data.  I think it may be just a bit more complicated. Best glide will likely give you the lowest fuel burn rate (gph); but since you’re going fewer miles in an hour; it’s not the best mpg.  My best glide speed is about 90 kts; but my best mpg is about 130kts - quite flat from about 140 – 120 kts.  The burn rate was continuing to go down at 110 kts; which was as far as I took data.

 

So minimum trip cost is at max MPG; if you consider your time as free.  But my plane seems to have a ‘sweet’ spot at 5500-5700 rpm, and at 10,500 I can go about 170 KTAS at a tad over 10 gph, so that’s what I do.  I could slow to 130 Kts and burn a tad under 7.0 gph; but would I be happyJ?

 

Al

 

Mark

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Al Gietzen <ALVentures@cox.net> wrote:

Where does one find the "most efficient operationg point" for a particular airframe?  Is this the same as LDmax?

 

Mark;

 

The EM2 reads out MPG. Most efficient operation would be where you get the highest MPG. So go fly at 100F, or so; lean of peak EGT and take some data of MPG and speed.  You’ll find a max MPG point that is slower than you’ll typically want to fly.  I think for my Velocity it was a fairly broad peak around 125 (I don’t even remember now if that was MPH or Kts; because I never fly there in level flight).  We didn’t build sleek airplanes with more powerful engines to go the speed of a Skyhawk – did we?

 

Al