This past Monday I had an opportunity to fly to Florida in a diesel Cessna 182. This diesel 182 is the first diesel-converted 182 in the United States. The reason this airplane was converted to diesel is because it will be flown to Nigeria to serve SIMAIR (www.sim.org) where regular airplane fuel is $16/gallon and diesel is only $4/gallon. Plus, it is more fuel efficient. A typical 182 burns about 15 gallons/hour, whereas the diesel burns approximately 7 gallons/hour!
I was invited on this trip by a JAARS co-worker, named Jim, who was a SIMAIR pilot for 32 years. This airplane needs to log 100 hours on the new engine before it can be flown to Niger, and nine of those hours are in my logbook now!
Monday started out smooth and clear until we got to northern Florida. We had to divert 100 miles off-course around these thunderstorms.
Picking our way through cloud banks at 12,500 feet
The SMA Diesel engine
We stopped at Banyon flight service (ranked in the top 10 of FBO's in the country) in Ft. Lauderdale. Jim's friend, Don, who he grew up with on the mission field, is the owner of this business. While they visited, I got to visit with my old boss from ASI Jet Center who is now the line manager at Banyon!
A power setting like this would blow up a gasoline engine (usually the manifold pressure gauge would be around 25, not 60! And the fuel-burn would be around 15 gph, not only 7.7!).
Orange groves
A Florida Alligator - the camera is not zoomed! This alligator lives in the lake at the SIMAIR retirement community that we visited and stayed at for two nights.
Back to JAARS after three long days of flying
Plane rental: freeDiesel fuel: free
Room & Board: free
Remote control airplane toy: $15.85
The squeals and smiles from a 1 1/2 year old who just received his first remote control toy: priceless
1 comment:
I enjoyed the comments about the diesel (jet fuel, I presume) Cessna engine. How was the performance? Did your plane have the SMA engine conversion, as described in the August 2007 AOPA "Pilot" magazine? Did you have to watch the linemen like a hawk so they didn't put 100LL in the plane?
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