How far can you fly?

70L has four seats but if I fill it full of fuel, I can only carry about 650 lbs of passengers and cargo. If I need to carry a bit more, I can leave some fuel behind, but that means landing sooner for more fuel. With full fuel, I can go for almost four hours without stopping, but since I always want at least an hour's worth of fuel on board full fuel will actually only take me about three hours away. If I leave behind about 100 lbs. of fuel, then my range is reduced to about an hour and a half of flying before refueling.

70L can cruise at about 110 knots, which is roughly 125 mph. But that doesn't mean that I can go 125 miles in an hour. When you fly, you can have a headwind or a tailwind or a quartering wind or no wind at all. If I'm flying at 125 mph and I have a 20 mph tailwind, I'll actually cover 145 miles over the ground in an hour. But if I'm flying into a 40 mph headwind, I'll only go 85 miles in that same hour. As you can see, the wind is important!

The winds don't blow in the same direction and speed at all altitudes. Consequently, pilots check the "winds aloft" through the weather services when they are going to make a flight and try to fly at an altitude that will give them the most favorable winds for the direction in which they need to fly.