Hurrying to Beat Night

[Bill Greenwood]

I don't think I have ever had to really race to get into Osh by the 8 pm closing time. But Cary writing about it reminds me of doing it one time at Lakeland for Sun N Fun.
When going a long way cross country I was always concious of fuel available and range and time, One thing about fuel was mostly there was not enogh so it was almost always a concern.
I was coming from Colo all the way to Lakeland, so a number of stops, with interal fuel allowing an hour and a half at ecomomy cruise or 350 nm range, usually. With an extra external tank this added another hour and 5 min both with a good reserve of at least 35 min. That year the last stop was at Tallahasee, so perhaps 45 min on to Lakeland, and this part-would be on internal fuel only, 108 gal and burning 47 gph at econ cruise, still good 35 min reserve, and weather was good,
Somewhere along the way, I listened to ATIS and realized it might be close so I called Lakeland tower or airboss and asks about not having to fly the whole arrival which was south of the ariport. The tower guy was very nice but said to hurry, and theyd try to fit me in. So now we are perhaps 50 miles away and I add power, no more economy cruise. Now revs come up from 1800 to 2400 , boost up to 7 to good cruising speed and I have to start thinking about counsumtion around 80 gph, no more 47 or 52 lazy economy.
Then tower calls back and says how far our are you, and I answer " About 10 min". and they say to keep coming but hurry. We started at at 11,500 so with nose down to descend and revs to 2650 and high cruise power really starting to pick up speed. We pass a few Cessnas that look motionless in air and try to keep a good look out for traffic. Controls are firmer and there is a lot of wind noise, engine sounds strong and clean, like it was made for this.
At about 25 miles I wonder how I am going to slow to gear down speed, we are really moving, airspeed needle on 2nd tier inner circle,280, about 150 knots above gear speed and with airport in sight. Tower or air boss is very nice, says keep coming and cleared for left base direct to ruwy 9, no other traffic. Somehow with power back, some g turns and a bit of nose up we get to gear speed and gear down, now it is more manageable though still 50 knots faster faster than short final speed. Then flaps down and I landed ok, , long runway, and either the last one or the next to last plane in before they closed.