Today some cool things happened. I've never been faster or higher in this bird. Today was a Hot day and allowed me to test for high density altitude performance. The First thing I did was race up to 14,500 (VFR limit) where I saw a Density altitude of just under 17,000ft. At this altitude, oil temps were nice and low while burning only 4.3gph going 160kts TAS. However, without an O2 system on board I won't be flying at this altitude anyways. Where she really shined was at 12,500 Density Altitude. The new Hertzler prop had her going 5kts faster and on .3gph LESS fuel than the Hercules. WOW. So now I can cruise up high doing 178kts TAS on only 5.3gph. That gives my bird a range of over 8 hrs and almost 1500 miles!!!!! Considering the fuel required to climb and the help of a long low power decent, I can safely count on 7hrs and 1300 miles on a full tank. WOW. And all that burning 93 octane pump gas at 2.50 a gallon :) Thanks again to Gary Hertzler for this one
