Enceladus

How easily I forget that within the meager range of my company's airplanes lies stark, beautiful,other worldly desolation.

Twenty miles northeast of North Platte, Nebraska. I have left my home planet and am cruising over Saturn's Ice Moon, Enceladus, at 11,000 feet.

I am doing something with which I am relatively unaccustomed: I am saving fuel.

Normally our scheduled runs are within easy range of our aircraft and speed, not economy, is the priority. So we run our engines at prescribed settings, accepting relatively horrendous fuel flows in exchange for slightly higher airspeeds and quicker delivery times.

Today is not a normal run. My day began at 2 a.m. Out to the airport by 3 a.m. Wheels up bound for Omaha at 0343. Then on to Denver at 0607 to drop a load of freight at 0757 local time for an unscheduled charter.

Good pay, lots of flying, a brief look at the mountains and a bit of the unknown.

After 38 minutes on the ground in Denver it was time for a straight shot home and time to deal with the problem that had been gnawing away at me since the phone rang so many hours earlier: Would I have enough fuel for this leg?

My flight planning showed the leg from Denver at 3+30. Normally, not a problem for an airplane that holds 5 hours of fuel.

Because of the oddities of scheduling and time constraints inherent in part 135 flying however I am not in a normal airplane. I am in the fastest airplane we have because I have so far to go and so little time to get there.

However that speed comes with a price: Spectacular fuel burns.

Left to it's own devices, which is how we normally fly this particular airplane, it will drink all 160 gallons of gasoline it carries in just a shade over 4 hours. I am fairly certain you couldn't burn fuel faster if you lit an open barrel of it on fire and pointed a leaf blower on the flames.

However it is still enough, barely, to make it but not enough to make it with the legally required 45 minutes of reserve fuel.

And certainly not prudent.

So it's time for plan b, real hairy-chested freight pilot stuff, for a change: In a fit of desperation I actually opened the manual.

If you are a student, this next bit is why your instructor makes you learn how to read the performance charts in your airplane and work through thorny problems.

If your instructor doesn't stress this make him or her. If they resist, find another.

Our company procedure had been to rely on the auto-leaning function built into the airplane and leave the mixture controls full forward at all times. As a good line pilot, and out of distaste for the thought of destroying a $30,000 engine through experimentation, this resulted in a stubborn effort to burn through roughly 40 gallons of fuel each hour which, for our typical 2-hour leg length, was never cause for more than passing amusement.

Turns out, much to my surprise, buried deep in a supplement toward the back of the airplane flight manual was the welcome news that our wickedly fast airplane will still go damn fast and sip fuel in the process.

And so this is how I find myself at 11,000 feet over Enceladus/Nebraska with 2 hours and 14 minutes still to fly and a fat 120 gallons of fuel – more than 4 hours worth -- in my tanks.

Somehow, through the magic of the performance charts I have barely looked at in a year, I have gotten my fuel burn down to a mere 27 gallons per hour at a cost of only 5 knots in true airspeed. It is a savings of 2.4 gallons-per-hour per knot. A staggering difference.

And after 3+33 chock to chock I landed with nearly 2 hours of fuel still in my tanks, something I had not thought possible 12 hours earlier.

It's why I have the best job in the world, I learn something new every day I go to work.