High gas prices/Mustang GT/Airplanes
 

I just got back from Saint Louis on Saturday. Prices were around $2.50 a gallon out there. I got back to DC and prices were $2.84! While I was gone, the Civic didn't get driven at all. The 4 door pick-up is way nicer to load and unload kids. She did pick me up at the airport in the civic, and she was averaging over 50mpg with the defroster on! I don't know how she does it, but she's good.
I'm betting on 3 bucks a gallon before the first week of June.

While out in Missouri, I helped my dad fix his house up after a terrible storm destroyed the deck and siding last year. I was more than happy to run back and forth to the hardware store in his brand new Mustang GT convertible with 18's! It is a real nice car. He gave me the thumbs up once to run it up, and the needle quickly went south of the 140mph mark, but the gas guage quickly went south too! Nice car, but it begs to go fast and it is hungry.

We also took one of his friends back in a Cessna 182RG with a 540 cubic inch motor. We flew it 4 hours round trip at 15gallons an hour. Leaded gas costs over $4.00:omg: , and unlike my flight club, his has a fuel surcharge. Still, the plane was far cheaper than commercial.
The plane I fly burns 10 gallons an hour and cruises at the same speed. Older guys like big motors....But hate the price of gas. Interesting dilema.

Re: High gas prices/Mustang GT/Airplanes
 

What do you fly? The 182RG is a decently efficient aircraft and generally the only ones I see that can go as fast on the same or less fuel are a lot smaller, or have a lot lower load rating. I know my friends 182RG is rated such that he can fly with 88 gallons and 4 people plus their baggage, which is like a really huge load amount for small aircraft! People with cars get spoiled by the whole notion of being able to gas up all the way and have 4 people and still be within the operating limits of the vehicle.

Re: High gas prices/Mustang GT/Airplanes
 

I still miss the charts I had for my Cherokee 140, basic performance data, for my hybrid-electric. I'm making my own but it would have been so easy for the vendor to include them in the Owner's Manual:

- MPG vs MPH
-- temperature correction table
-- altitude correction table
- climb speed vs grade
- descent speed vs grade

Bob Wilson

Re: High gas prices/Mustang GT/Airplanes
 

Yeah, but providing all that info to the uninformed consumer opens them up to all sorts of complaints or worse- "you said I would get 58mpg at 40mph on a 4%downgrade- I don't and I'm calling my lawyer."

Its basic safety-of-flight stuff for (highly trained) pilots but, for the most part, extraneous for all but the most serious drivers. Too much information without training or knowledge of how to properly use it in context is often worse than simple ignorance.

That's not to say it shouldn't be available- upon request, or via ownerslink or something like that?

Re: High gas prices/Mustang GT/Airplanes
 

Hi,

In this, we disagree. After all, EPA mileage cases have not shutdown the auto industry and those are just two data points of the missing graphs. Legal disclaimer language is quite common, just buy some software. Aircraft are still made and sold and the lawsuits have had more to do with keeping knowledge from pilots than what was available.

Empirical data is what attracted me to GreenHybrid.com in the first place. Compared to the EPA numbers, the mileage database is an order of magnitude better. As I mentioned, I'm already plotting my own data which allows me to make driving choices:

http://hiwaay.net/%7Ebzwilson/prius/priMPG.jpg

As crude as this data is, lacking accelleration and decelleration effects, it provides insights that changed my driving habits and improved my MPG performance.

Successful lawsuits have been built upon finding information that was withheld such as the "Pinto memos" and other cases where the company tried to keep "the bad news" to itself. Tobacco has learned that thanks to the "Warning," they now have a powerful shield against lawsuits while they continue selling truely dangerous products. Yet hybrids have been rightfully castigated by automobile writers who in their ignorance, can not achieve EPA numbers.

Lacking performance charts, having nothing but the limited data in the Owner's Manual, owner-operators have next to nothing to give them a clue about how to drive hybrids (or any other car) efficiently. It is funny but publishing this kind of detailed data for all cars would probably save more gas across the board than a huge increase in hybrids. Of course, not everyone will understand and use this data. But to keep capable owner-operators ignorant because there are fools about, is just wrong.

Bob Wilson

Re: High gas prices/Mustang GT/Airplanes
 

Ahha! The right question has been asked! You are 100% correct on the efficiency and payload capabilities of the 182RG. you can really load it up. The one we flew holds 80 gallons of gas. That is over 500 pounds of fuel. It cruises at 150 knots burning about 15 gallons an hour. So you are doing 170 mph and getting 11.5mpg "in dead air". I'm 170 pounds, my dad is 220 pounds and the guy we flew back is about 215 pounds. We had roughly 70 pounds of luggage. With fuel and people, we had about 1200 pounds in the aircraft.

The plane I fly is a bunch smaller. It is a Diamond Star with a 360 cubic inch motor. It only hauls 40 gallons of gas. It has 4 seats, but I don't think we would have gotten off the ground with the three of us in the plane. It burns 10 gallons an hour at 145 kts, but I like landing every 3 hours anyway. My wife is about 120 pounds, and our 2 kids total 50 pounds. When we travel we have 2 small suitcases and a couple of small things. The other aspect of the Diamond I like is the all glass cockpit. It has XM Radio and Weather. Great for a small family, but no real load capabilities. It also can't fly into known ice. You hit the nail on the head. Bang for the buck, not much is better than a 182!