New ride
 

So my commute changed quite a lot. Went from 30 miles round trip to 800 miles round trip. Though 100 of the round trip miles are in the car, the rest is on a plane that would be going anyway. The commute went from 5 days a week to once every 2 weeks. Going to be driving one of these.http://www.penair.com/images/fleet/fleet_12_large.jpg

I am very stoked as this is the first bit of professional flying I have had the opportunity to do.

...in Alaska, aren't planes jokingly referred to as "...sky cars..." or "...sky sleds..."?

Somewhat true. Though I have not heard those terms. Lots of places an aircraft is pretty much the only viable option for travel that does not take weeks to months to get where you are going. Especially if any equipment is going along.

I have heard them called "taxi"s Many people use them like pickup trucks. (not urban trucks but actual working pickups).

While I was building hours we would use our plane to fly to town some 450 miles. Worked out well because the fuel cost for the round trip was just about the same as one round trip jet ride, so with wife and I and the dog, and way more groceries than we could fit into checked luggage worked out well.

So what mpg's do you expect to get with that?

160mph, 350 pounds per hour @ 6.8 # per gallon. Works out at about 3 mpg.

Lol the only reasonable time to be proud of 3mpg...

Any way to get it better?

Maybe a diesel swap is in order! No seriously!

Turbine engine. JetA is more filtered diesel with some anti gelling additives.

I'm sorry, I should have qualified: a diesel reciprocating engine. Are the gph rates better or worst between it and a turbine?

Likely a piston would have lower consumption rates, but at 675 HP continuous I don't think a diesel could be light and durable enough. I do know of gasoline radial engines that operate at similar power levels and lower consumption but the overhauls are much more frequent (as are failures) and the parts situation is pretty dismal for having anything close to an acceptible dispatch relibility.

Fuel flow and speed in this aircraft are pretty linear. If you slow down enough to improve the consumption the trip times almost double. Which means the company is doing manditory 100hr inspections (and expinsive overhauls) spread over less revenew.

About the best option is to load the thing to max weight/pasenger count before doing a trip. The company already tries to do that as it is.

The plane I learned to fly in got about 15mpg to 17mpg if I climbed really high and leaned as far out as I could. With two people on board that works out to about 30mpg/per person

The one I will be flying for work gets about 3mpg most of the time, 4 if you climb and cruse in thin air, but most of the time we are ducking weather so that is not really a reliable option. If you load to max passenger load (9) we are in the 27mpg/passenger range.