And I thought a four-hour flight I once took in a 172 was far too long! Good little airplanes, they are. I suppose they chose their engine airspeed to achieve

And I thought a four-hour flight I once took in a 172 was far too long! Good little airplanes, they are. I suppose they chose their engine airspeed to achieve the lowest fuel consumption rate https://www.se.edu/aviation/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/10/172R-POH.pdf https://www.se.edu/aviation/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/... See pdf page 132, book page 5-18. It looks like they could use as little as ~6 gallons/hour at 1900 rpm. You can save a lot of fuel by flying more slowly; handy to know if you need (heaven forbid) to stretch that 45-minute reserve when your destination is socked in.