As a % how many of your flights have been more than 4 hours non stop (excluding turbine)

chflyer wrote:

Having a provision is one thing, using it is another, especially in mixed company. Whether one has a provision or not, it is indeed interesting how many thread entries here make reference to bladder limitation determining max trip length.

I just find it too long sitting in one place. I don’t particularly love long flights even now I have a toilet that can be used if I have a second pilot with me.

Robert, I think I posted the info here That Wired article is astonishing, with two F16 crashes attributed to this issue.

And, EASA says it is legal so it must be right!

Chflyer, if I was to do a flight with a female passenger, I would tell her I may need to do this so she needs to look the other way, and if she were to refuse then I would not fly with her.

Plenty of other fun threads e.g. here.

I use the plane to get interesting flights to interesting places, so I avoid pointless stopovers. It is also much safer.

Not sure about pointless, or safer. I don’t think it’s good to sit at one task for hours on end, which may be why truck drivers have to take breaks. It takes only 10-15 minutes to pick a field, land, walk around or do some tai chi or whatever, and buzz off again.

Statistically, it may seem safer to cruise on a/p for 10 minutes than to land and take off, but there’s more to GA than supervising an autopilot:

I think that if one could just pop down anywhere there is a runway, take a short break, and fly off again, I would be doing that more readily, but it isn’t -

• wx risk (in IFR one is usually cruising VMC above some layer, unless it is CAVOK all the way to outer space)
• extra work briefing and flying an approach
• finding someone to pay the landing fee
• file the onward flight plan (which attracts the risk of a CTOT)
• extra work flying a departure
• fuel lost – about 5-6 USG for mine
• extra stress
• most GA-usable airfields are dumps in the middle of nowhere and if there is food it is usually crap (more so in the UK but frankly in most places in Europe)

However, in VFR flying, low level, popping into strips, it’s a different picture, but then one isn’t likely to be doing such long trips unless on some kind of flying holiday

Yes, fair enough, it’s “courses for horses” – if you need a half mile of tarmac runway, the choice of (de)watering holes is limited, and if you’re cruising two miles high on top of 8/8 cloud at Mach 0.25 there’s little incentive to descend.

But for most GA aircraft half a kilometre of grass or dirt is plenty, and there we sometimes find interesting people or machinery (Breighton), and catering which varies from BYO (Falgunzeon, above video) to excellent (Glenforsa, Bute and, of course, Glenswinton if the staff are suitably warned).

Jacko wrote:

cruising two miles high on top of 8/8 cloud at Mach 0.25

I loooove Jacko’s humour

When did you fly 8 hrs @Peter ?

Several flights only. I recall one from Zagreb to Shoreham, obviously with a 30-40kt headwind.