Route and Fuel Planning Day 1

Delving a little deeper into the flight plan.

I intend to use a flight planning program called Flight Planner 3000, by Champagne Software a WA business owned and run by Rob Slater. I find the program to be first class, & I can't say enough about this service I have recieved. You will see some of the functionality below. Worth a look if your in the market for a Australian Flight Planner. http://www.champagnepcservices.com.au/.

Day 1 sees us fly to Alice Springs from our home airport of Collie

Day 1 sees us tavel some 1130nm or 2085km. I have chosen a relatively direct route, linking up the nearest airstrips that form a straightish line (haven't bothered with great circle routes etc). The first hop Collie to Kalgoorlie is over farmland with plenty of forced landing locations and friendly terrain but few options for fuel. The range on the TB-20 has got this leg well covered so thats not going to be an issue. Kalgoorlie is a large regional airport which recieves 727's etc and has all ammenities but no tower. It could be fun being tucked in between these guys on our desent, giddee up:)

A refuel at Kalgoorlie is definately required as we have 818nm still to run on our second leg of day 1. This presents my first planning challenge. The second leg is over is predominately rocky desert (bugger all forced landing sites) and no fuel available unless pre-arranged to have it delivered to a remote airstrip / community.

So the question is; Can we attempt this leg without refueling? or doI need to organise to have fuel dropped at either Giles (outback weather staion) or Warburton (Indigenious Community)?

FP3000 uses specific fuel flows for each altitude, and for each phase of Flight (climb, cruise, decent).

These values assume Rich of Peak (ROP) operation. JTT is fitted with Gami injectors and a JPI fuel flow computer so the option of going Lean of Peak (LOP) is available. Fuel flows (very conservative numbers) for LOP are around 8L/Hr less than ROP and a loss of 5Knots.

Using average winds aloft for this time of year, NE at 15knts or (045/15), sees the fuel balance looks like this for ROP:

Running LOP it looks like:

We are looking for an adventure but flying with 19L of fuel in the tanks over rocky desert ( no forced landing sites) with somewhat unknown winds aint for us. The reg's say that for VFR flight you need 45 mins fixed reserve ( i.e. 42L) but in this case 45 mins of reserve does not allow us to reach an alternate airport nor does it really give us much margin if we hit a stronger than forecast headwind once past the point of no return.

So what are our options?

1. Fuel stop at either Giles or Warburton, assuming I can pre-arrange for fuel to be delivered there. I also assume the minimum fuel you can have delivered is a 44 gallon (205L) drum of Avgas. By the time we land at Giles I will have around 120L remaining in the tanks this will allow me to fit 200L in, so thats OK.
   
2. Carry extra fuel. Not 100% sure what the reg's say about this but if an appropriate container/s are used I would feel it is safe enough. Weight on the other hand may be an issue. I think you would want to carry at least an extra 60 litres (3 x Gerry Cans). This is an extra 60L x 0.71kg/L = 42kg's. The TB has a great carrying capability when compared to it's competitors, 600kg's useful load, thats the same as a Cessna 182 but the TB does 163KTAS while carrying it..
   So I think I need to have a good look at what we are planning on carrying.
   
   Luggage for 10 days with 2 women aboard 30kg's (gees that gonna cause a few arguments "but I want to take my hair straightener, and 14 pairs of jeans")
   Full Fuel 326 x 0.71 = 230 kg's
   Pilot=105Kg's
   Navigator=75kg's
   Back Seat bandits=50+50kg's
   Total= 540kg's
   
   So adding 42L of carry on fuel fits the load limit. Balance would be an issue as the TB allows only 50Kg's in the luggage area, and the fuel and bags would weigh 72kg's. maybe I should get the kids to sit on a gerry each, that would give her straight hair if we went down ... hmmm.
   Would 60L be enough?
   74L at time of landing in Alice. 1 and 1/2 hrs reserve...hmm... as long as the winds did not pick up past a 15knt head wind it would probably be OK.
   

Decision = Check out the logistics of getting fuel dropped at Giles and leave carrying extra fuel as a back up, although packing the plane if we did take extra fuel would need further thought.