Hi James,
I have a PA 28 180 E manual, and while it’s nowhere near as expansive as later manuals I believe patient study will lead you to the information you need.
I have found stall speeds at different weights, suggested landing speeds, and speeds and fuel consumption numbers at various altitudes and power settings.
According to the 180E manual the flaps up stall speed is 67 mph, and the flaps down stall speed is 57 mph at MTOW (gross wt)
You can extrapolate from these numbers using a chart in Wolfgang Langwiesche’s book “Stick and Rudder,” a classic flying manual.
In the chapter titled “The Working Speeds of an Airplane” Langwiesche explains what speed to fly at if you want to get the most miles per gallon of fuel; the speed of best distance (which is normal glide speed), how to stretch your fuel against a wind, and the speed of best duration.
I’ll attach his chart to this answer. The speeds are predictable. See if you can extrapolate what they would be for your airplane.
Let’s go through one a flight using data in the 180E book.
Plan a flight from your airport (home ‘drome) to a point 500 nm away. For the sake of this exercise we will choose a flight over low terrain without any appreciable wind.
Lets also presume that you are loading your airplane to the Maximum Take off Weight (MTOW) of 2400 pounds with a full fuel load (50 gallons).
According to the landing and takeoff performance charts you should be able to lift off after a ground run of approximately 750 feet and get over a 50 foot obstacle in approximately 1650 feet (at sea level) If your airport is at 3000’ MSL, the two numbers would be approx 825 and approx 2150 feet.
You climb out at the suggested cruise climb speed of 100 mph; you’re planning to cruise (and the hemispheric cruising rule suggests) 7,500 feet.
You rate of climb will decrease from about 770 ft/min to 370 ft/min at 7,500 feet. If we average those two climb rates we get an average climb rate of 570 feet/min. It takes about 13 minutes to get to 7500. Since 13 minutes is approx 21 percent of an hour we can determine that in that 13 minutes we’ve traveled 21 miles.
Next we set the engine power for cruise power. According to the manual, the preferred power setting for cruise is 75% power.
According to the power setting chart in section V, 75% power is just attainable at 7000 ft. but 70% power is attainable up to 9000 feet so we will cruise at 70% power by running the engine at 2590 rpm. According to the True Airspeed and rpm vs Density Altitude chart in the Performance section of the 180E manual this will result in a 138 mph cruise speed.
One place the 180 E manual falls down is providing the full throttle fuel consumption. I have a Lycoming Operator’s Manual for the 360 series engines. For an O-360 A series engine full throttle and 2700 rpm will yield a fuel consumption of around 16.5 gph. As I mentioned earlier 70 percent cruise yields 9.3 gph.
Fuel consumption estimates are 13 minutes at a maximum consumption of 16.5 gph equals around 3.5 gallons. Then we settle down (on our fictitional flight) burning 9.3 gph.
We have approximately 479 miles left. Divide 479 by 138 for an estimated time enroute of approximately 3.5 hours. Based on our fuel computations we should have 3.5 times 9.3 gph and that 21 % of the 16.5 gph (3.465 gallons) for the full throttle climb segment of the flight yields an expected fuel consumption number of 32.55 + 3.4565 for a total fuel burn of just a schosh over 36 total gallons.
It looks like we’re safe to make this flight under VFR fuel planning margins since our total fuel consumption is right around 36.01 gallons.
I hope I haven’t misunderstood your question, but it seems to me that most of the pre flight and inflight planning numbers you need are in the 180E and earlier manuals.
Please let me know if I’ve been any help, or if there’s anything I’ve misunderstood.
Best,
Steve
Forgot to attach the chart
