Along the years and countless flight hours, we tend to forget, or at least to downgrade some of our most remarkable experiences. Take, for example, those of the early days of our training where the memories may fade in favor of the new and more exciting things we experience as we progress in aviation. The other day while flying an ETOPS see definition below route south of the Sahara Desert, at least a couple hours of our closest alternate, a rather insistent strong headwind made for a much higher fuel consumption than planned.
The additional fuel was significant enough for me, as pilot monitoring on that sector, to suspect something more than a stronger than forecasted headwind. In the end, any suspicion of a fuel leak was gone as all our fuel consumption numbers started to match what was planned and we even arrived at our destination with even more fuel than planned.
ETOPS — E xtended-range T win-engine O perational P erformance S tandards the rules by which twin-engine airplanes can be operated beyond one hour from a suitable alternate airport. The flight school where I was building my time did not allow us to stay overnight with the airplanes out of base. So all of our flights had to be turnaround or out-and-back flights. After flying to dozens of airports in Florida, and to destinations in Georgia and even South Carolina, I wanted to add a new state to my list.
After considering some options, we decided to fly to Dothan KDHN , located conveniently close to the border with Florida.
After all, we did not have time to do much during our short stay and the idea was more like having the personal achievement of putting a pin on the map of another state. The straight line route was nm, quite comfortable for the range of a Cessna Yet, with the Military Operations Areas MOAs we had to avoid, plus choosing some familiar alternates to fly over, the final distance of the route was nm. We did the math and completed a full navigation log. Given the forecast winds, planned true airspeed, and adjusted ground speed, we calculated a flight time of three hours and five minutes.
