Saturday, May 28, 2011

Florida Planning

While we sat and enjoyed dinner last night at Famous Dave's BBQ with family, my sister-in-law Janice mentioned that her and my brother would be in their new home in Jupiter and asked if we wanted to visit.  Mary and I talked it over today and I think we are going to try and make the trip provided my Bride can schedule off work.
Preliminary flight planning has begun and the wx watch has started. I took Jeff F's advice and gave the Airnav fuelstop planning page a go, I liked it!  Depending on the winds we may, we might (fingers crossed and fuel overflowing) have a slim chance on making this in one stop. The first leg, 4 hours, 398 miles to North Myrtle is doable if the winds are calm or the always welcome tailwind decides to ride along.
The second leg to F45, West Palm Beach is 487 miles and 4.5 hours. The Sundowner holds 57 gallons with my flight plan numbers of 10 gal/hr fuel burn. To close for my comfort zone and I'll still need reserves for my IFR flight, I'll need a stop. With a second stop required I let Airnav help out and run the numbers. St. Augustine looks to be my best bet and fuel is cheaper than other local airports.  The Myrtle Beach to St. Augustine leg would be a very comfortable 2.8 hours.
With full tanks it would be a 2 hour hop to West Palm and leave just enough room in the tanks to take a few gallons required to wave an overnight parking fee.  I did mention I was cheap, right?

Enough flight planning for today. Mary and I are off to find dinner, walk around the Farmers Market and visit family.

1 comment:

Steve said...

Nothing wrong with being cheap where you can be - anything else involved with the airplane most certainly isn't! Hope you two had a great holiday. I tagged along with a friend for another Pilots N Paws flight on Sunday - working on the photos/videos/post right now.