I was impressed when I read of the exploits of Bill Harrelson, the Virginia pilot who on March 1 flew his Lancair IV nonstop from Guam, in the western Pacific, to Jacksonville, Florida. The hop, if you can call it that, of about 8,000 statute miles took 38 and a half hours. If that weren’t enough, his positioning trip to Guam included a 20-hour leg from Indiana to Hawaii, and he did the whole out-and-back journey in the course of a week. My parents, who spoke German around the house mainly to keep secrets from me, used the term Sitzfleisch — “sit flesh” — as a synonym for patience or, more precisely, the ability to sit still for a long time. Harrelson has it.
Naturally, I had to do the numbers to be sure this was not an elaborate hoax. Harrelson’s Lancair (if you’re new to aviation, the “c” in Lancair, in defiance of the conventions of English pronunciation, is soft) is the recip-engined, nonpressurized version, with extra tankage for long-distance flying. Unlike those of most Lancair IVs, Harrelson’s Continental 550 is unturbocharged and has 10:1 pistons, which improve its specific fuel consumption. According to FlightAware, on which I followed the slowly lengthening green lines indicating his progress, Harrelson planned 180 knots at 7,000 feet. A Lancair IV is a pretty clean airplane, so I figured he could probably manage 180 knots at 10 gallons an hour. Assuming some help from the prevailing westerly wind, he would have to carry about 400 gallons, plus a bit more for taxi, climb and luck.
