I just took Cutter’s Goose on a night journey - the big hop (for a Goose) from the island of Niue to Aratanga. It’s 577 nautical miles, so technically beyond the Goose’s 560nm range, but with a following wind and flying with the best possible fuel economy (which made the trip take a full 6 hours), I touched down just after the sun came up. Here’s a pic I took a few miles from my destination:
When I touched down at Aitutaki Airport, I had just 24 gallons (out of 220) left in the tank.
Note: this was with BestPowerSpecificFuelConsumption set to 1 in the engines.cfg file, in order to get realistic fuel consumption. Big Radials ships the Goose with fuel consumption set to 0.33, which gives the aircraft the ability to fly about 1800 miles, which is totally unrealistic.
This is the longest single hop on the way from the US (or pretty much anywhere else) to Bora Bora (the real-life equivalent of Tales of the Gold Monkey’s Bora Gora), so I wanted to make sure it could be done with realistic fuel usage.
Next, I plan to live out my fantasy of flying Jake Cutter’s Goose from Bora Bora (or Bora Gora). Adventure awaits!