How Bad Do The Airlines Suck? Enough To Load A Lot of Gas Into a Sling TSi and FLY For 12+ Hours
ANN RealTime Update-033119, 2107ET: After slogging through all kinds of really bad weather over the Gulf of Mexico, Sling TSi N135WT is on the ground in Florida after what had to be be one heck of a flight. We're waiting on additional details from Wayne and Jean, but after monitoring their travels over the 14 hour trip, it's obvious that this journey was not for the faint of heart... More details to follow! -- Jim Campbell, ANN CEO Editor-In-Chief
Original Report: You have to give the Airplane Factory/Sling gang credit... they sure know how to cheat the airlines. If you're reading this anytime within 12 hours of 0400 Pacific Time, Sunday, you need to check out what the Airplane Factory's Wayne Toddun and Jean d'Assonville are doing...
They're launching out of Torrance in the speedy little Sling TSi 4-place we named the 2019 SportPlane of the Year... and they're NOT stopping (weather permitting) until they get to Lakeland.
Don't believe it? Follow the flight on Flightradar24 here: https://www.flightradar24.com/N135WT/ and be prepared to be jealous... and also be in absolute awe of these guys' bladder capacity.
Yup... 12 hours or so... Ouch...
It's a 1900NM jaunt... and while the TSi can easily do 155-160 knots at altitude due to the Turbocharged Rotax 915iS, they'll be a bit slower in order to economize and make sure that they have enough motion lotion to make it all the way to Lakeland without hitch-hiking. Mind you; the Sling bunch have done ocean-crossings (Pacific AND Atlantic) in a Sling 2, so this is not big deal to the likes of these guys... but its still an impressive feat for the first US-Registered TSi... an airplane that first arrived, in a crate, at Oshkosh 2018 and has been flying up a storm ever since.
Yeah... they could have made a stop or two like the rest of us weenies, but they wanted to demonstrate the altitude, TAS and endurance/economy of the Sling TSi. Normal cruise is 155 KTAS at 9,500' at 8 GPH, while the Turbocharged FADEC engine allows the airplane to climb into the 20,000'+ flight levels and flights to 23,000' are already in the logbooks.
The Sling TSi's standard tanks tote up to 45 gallons, while long range wing tip tanks add an additional 22 Gallons, total. They've added internal portable tanks of 20 gallons in order to total 87 gallons at takeoff. That amount of fuel wouldn't keep an Airbus APU running for long... much less all the way across the USA.
ANN will keep you informed of their progress...
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