Florida: Bravo or Ovation 2? -I opted for the Bravo, will fly over mountains each summer... high and low power settings???

[TLWM-21]

I'm in Florida. I fly a lot of 1 hour trips to the keys, jacksonville, Tallahassee, etc.   But I also fly to Atlanta, NC, and around 400 mile+ flights.     **I have 102 hours in a 1989 J model within the last 11 months.     I do plan to fly each summer to California, Montana, Colorado, British Colombia, etc., and to the same places on good weather days in the winter to ski.    In my business I will have clients all over the country, and I plan on flying to see clients through the country during the year. Because of my widespread travel aspirations, especially trips out west in the summer in mountainous regions, I opted for the Bravo instead of an Ovation 2; a Bravo with long range tanks....   The Ovation 2 may be better suited for the 60-90 minute hops around Florida, but the Bravo is most likely better suited for 4-5 hours flights across the country; Montana, Idaho, mountains etc. 

Fuel burn on the Bravo?   What will the fuel burn be at 160-170kts at 8,000 ft?

 

What are your 17,500 ft fuel burns at different power settings?

[NickG]

I have an Ovation (310 HP) based in Las Vegas. My mission is flights to LA, Houston, Oregon and Denver. There’s no route the Ovation cannot fly - I’m usually at between 12 and 16k, have on occasion gone to 18k plus but no full face mask so sort of capped there (I could get one tho…) Las Vegas to Houston in about 6 and a bit hours.
 

My O is 170-180 KTAS in 11.5-12.5 GPH LOP at those altitudes. There’s also flaming dragon mode if you want to kick it up closer to 190 KTAS and burn 17+ GPH (I don’t ). I have a useful load of #1100. I was seriously considering a Bravo but decided for the O after running through multiple scenarios (east to west, west to east) and my mission and useful load requirements. The O will outperform the Bravo at mid altitudes and do so sipping a lot less fuel. The Bravo will shine in the Flight Levels.

You’ll love the bravo but I couldn’t think of a better cross country bird for me than my Ovation. 

[FlyingScot]

9 hours ago, NickG said:

I have an Ovation (310 HP) based in Las Vegas. My mission is flights to LA, Houston, Oregon and Denver. There’s no route the Ovation cannot fly - I’m usually at between 12 and 16k, have on occasion gone to 18k plus but no full face mask so sort of capped there (I could get one tho…) Las Vegas to Houston in about 6 and a bit hours.
 

My O is 170-180 KTAS in 11.5-12.5 GPH LOP at those altitudes. There’s also flaming dragon mode if you want to kick it up closer to 190 KTAS and burn 17+ GPH (I don’t ). I have a useful load of #1100. I was seriously considering a Bravo but decided for the O after running through multiple scenarios (east to west, west to east) and my mission and useful load requirements. The O will outperform the Bravo at mid altitudes and do so sipping a lot less fuel. The Bravo will shine in the Flight Levels.

You’ll love the bravo but I couldn’t think of a better cross country bird for me than my Ovation. 

My experience exactly - and I do have a mask, although I hate wearing it so I rarely go above 18 (which would be the case in a Bravo as well ). The O is an amazing cross country machine and the speed+burn performance at mid-altitudes is phenomenal. 

[exM20K]

16 hours ago, TLWM-21 said:

Fuel burn on the Bravo?   What will the fuel burn be at 160-170kts at 8,000 ft?

 

What are your 17,500 ft fuel burns at different power settings?

Good choice of plane for the mission. You’ll want a FIKI bird, too.

Foreflight performance plus subscription has a variety of performance profiles. Adjust cruise down by 5% for the TKS drag, and you should be spot on.  Fltplan.com should have some free profiles as well. Cruise speed and fuel consumption alone are much less useful than the full flight performance profiles including climb and descent.

-dan

[BravoWhiskey]

I have a bravo with fiki.  I burn 18th at all altitudes.  That’s at 30/2300 power setting.  I don’t plan longer than 4hrs wheels up to wheels down.  I’ve gone as far as El Paso from Wast coast of PA.  Great plane for all of that but yes, quite thirsty… and I haven’t explored LOP yet to get GPH down to 14 as some others have been able to do comfortably.  Haven’t gone over the Rockies yet but do have the mask on board just incase I have to opportunity to do that.  Like you I have clients all over US and that is one of the reasons I selected the Bravo.  FIKI is worth its weight in gold…. But I have also left her behind to fly commercial a few times!

[Fritz1]

welcome aboard, the FIKI Bravo shines in mountain flying, typical cruise at FL190 30" 2300 RPM is 185 KT TAS at about 18.5 GPH, at climb power 34" 2400 RPM the Bravo will hold 600 ft/min at 120KT up to FL210, I typically do not go higher unless there is a need to climb above icing clouds, the critical altitude on the turbo is around 21,000 ft, key to longevity is CHT below 400, TIT below 1600, power reductions not more than 2"/min with synchronous fuel flow reduction to keep TIT in the mid 1500s, this engine really runs better with Tempest fine wire plugs and needs 25h oil changes, run conservatively the engine will make TBO, maybe needs a cylinder or two overhauled, turbo and wastegate tend to need an overhaul around 1200h. Overall about as good as it gets in a piston single, the Acclaim is faster due to its better cowl and propeller, the engine though has very different characteristics compared to the Bravo engine

[philiplane]

Climbing quickly above the Florida heat and weather is best done with a turbo. In the summer, I find that 11,000 to 17,000 feet is needed to be above the tops where it's cool and clear. Passengers don't like bumping around in the heat and in the clouds that you find between 3000 to 9000 feet from May through October.

[Danb]

I’d clearly opt for the Bravo I had my bravo for about 17 years without any real repair issues beyond annuals and oil changes, it had LR tanks which I dearly miss with my Acclaim. I flew similar to above 30/2400 18 GPH TIT under 1600 10-15 hours for a quart of oil basically one between oil changes around 12-13000ft I’d true about 195 no FIKI and similar speed to my Acclaim with FIKI although the Acclaim is flown LOP at 14.5-15 GPH. If I could got back I’d have kept the Bravo. 

[TLWM-21]

How much to add FIKI  TKS?

 

[LANCECASPER]

41 minutes ago, TLWM-21 said:

How much to add FIKI  TKS?

 

Find an airplane with it already. To add it to an existing airplane is roughly $70,000.

[Jetpilot86]

On 10/21/2024 at 4:47 PM, TLWM-21 said:

I'm in Florida. I fly a lot of 1 hour trips to the keys, jacksonville, Tallahassee, etc.   But I also fly to Atlanta, NC, and around 400 mile+ flights.     **I have 102 hours in a 1989 J model within the last 11 months.     I do plan to fly each summer to California, Montana, Colorado, British Colombia, etc., and to the same places on good weather days in the winter to ski.    In my business I will have clients all over the country, and I plan on flying to see clients through the country during the year. Because of my widespread travel aspirations, especially trips out west in the summer in mountainous regions, I opted for the Bravo instead of an Ovation 2; a Bravo with long range tanks....   The Ovation 2 may be better suited for the 60-90 minute hops around Florida, but the Bravo is most likely better suited for 4-5 hours flights across the country; Montana, Idaho, mountains etc. 

Fuel burn on the Bravo?   What will the fuel burn be at 160-170kts at 8,000 ft?

 

What are your 17,500 ft fuel burns at different power settings?

Welcome to my world.  I run laps between CO, TX, KY, FL most of the year.

I can do 800-1000 mile legs, 6h 30m endurance at a 15gph average, burning 14gph in cruise at 17000'.  30"/2200 and 174ktas, 130kias.  That's slightly LoP.

If you are doing the FL hops with 3-4 people, you'll be fine with the Bravo, you are not carrying more than 3 hours fuel with that load anyway.  I did CO to AZ this summer out of the mountains and it was the boss, the mutt, myself, 100 lbs of luggage and 75gal (5 hours total) of gas for max gross takeoff.  I've got the long range tanks, 118gal, and full, it's about 240 lbs of useful load left over when full.

I only do 8000' if the winds force me to, the performance is no better than your old J model, for a higher fuel burn.  However, 8000', 30"/2200 74% Power, 16.7gph (RoP) is 168ktas by my calculations.  Peak/LoP is 14.1gph, 68% power, 164ktas.  Note that for 17500', the same power setting would be 14.6 for Peak/LoP 70% power, 180ktas. 

Vs the J, the way you manage the Bravo's range is via altitude as the FF's are very similar for a given power setting throughout the altitude range, usually within 1 gph.  With a Bravo, to get your money's worth, you'll need to run on O2 and get high.  I've found with mine that the upper teens, low FL's (180-190) are the sweet spot.  Problem is anytime of year at that altitude, if you hit a cloud, you are going to start icing up, so the one thing I really miss not having on mine is TKS as I'm getting chased away from the altitudes I want to run at, anywhere north of the FL/GA line, anytime I hit a cloud.  That $70k upgrade is looking more tempting each flight, probably cheaper than upgrading to a Cessna T310R or 340A 

Hope that helps.

[PilotX]

I run LOP. 2200/30” 12.5 (12.2 sometimes) gph, 2200/32” 13.5, 2200/34” 14.5 = 170 TAS.

I fly around the Rocky Mountains all day. Take off west and go straight over the mountains and lean when I get to the crossing altitude.

To get better speed you need to be on O2. We have an O2D2 with an inline reducer and cannulas as well as masks but we never get that high finding 15K is great for going west. Good luck with your Bravo.