Search results

Usually, yes, but some carbureted 4-bangers like my O-320-D3G also run smoothly LOP.

Great plan! For a N-A engine, above 7–8,000 ft DA, there ain't no red box. How do you lean during climb?

Ditto. In my Piper PA-28-161 (fixed-pitch prop), when I'm cruising at, say, 4,000 ft DA or higher, I advance the throttle to full for takeoff and then don't touch it again until it's time to start my descent. I set power by pulling back the mixture until I'm at the correct RPM for my desired...

Sometimes, but not always. Pilots really need to learn more about how mixture works. Understanding this chart (which applies to all N-A piston engines, not just the O-320) should be part of basic groundschool, but unfortunately, even most instructors don't really have a clue — the red lever...

+1 My home airport CYRO is class G with CYND's MF airspace right next to it (a bit like class D, but with an FSS rather than a tower). Calling from the ground to get a squawk code for transitioning their airspace is SOP, because once you've in the air, they might be too busy with other calls to...

Current thinking from the GAMI folks and pals after running lots of engines on test stands is that the mixture setting doesn't matter under 65% for a normally-aspirated engine, because the red zone shrinks away to virtually nothing. At least, that's what I remember from Busch's articles and books.

Also, not everyone starts from the same place. If you're a smoker, inactive, etc, CO could start affecting you more severely at lower concentrations.

That depends on where you were to start. You want to stay either on the lean side of peak EGT or on the rich side of 100° ROP. It's not "too lean" or "too rich" per se, but a question of keeping a safe margin from 50° ROP EGT (peak CHT) on either the lean or the rich side. And below 65% power...

The mnemonic I learned was "prop up; throttle down." (Lead with the prop when increasing power, and lead with the throttle when decreasing power.)

My one vacuum failure was in night VMC, and was a non issue on a clear night with lots of ground lighting. I also had a joint AI and ASI failure in low IMC (instrument failure for the AI; blocked pitot for the ASI). In my draggy PA-28-161, hand flown, continuing for 30–40 min until I broke out...

Often, the pilot tells ATC. IIRC, they also look at scoring inside the gyros to see how fast they were still spinning on impact. Agreed that they wouldn't detect every case, but they detect many accidents for retractables where a vacuum failure in IMC is a primary cause, and if that were they...

That's true. It's very difficult (almost impossible) to find an example of a fatal accident caused by a vacuum failure in a fixed-gear plane flown by an IFR-current pilot on an IFR flight — the fatalities are all in retractables. I suspect the gear acts as a speed brake and slows down spiral...

That's great advice, and it applies equally to those with glass and solid-state AHRS. Things go wrong: relays fail, alternators bonk out, etc, and you can easily find yourself relying on a couple of tiny backup gauges off at the side (vacuum or battery or even portable) to keep the dirty side...

Maybe a less contentious way to rephrase what others are saying is that it's best not to compare yourself to other pilots or or to look for outside causes like a grumpy examiner. Instead, look at the guy staring back from the mirror. Tell him "you're a pretty good pilot, and you failed a...

Don't beat yourself up. If you haven't failed a ride yet, you're not trying hard enough. :) Failures are great learning opportunities. I flunked my (mandatory in Canada) biennial IPC a number of years back and had to do a partial retest after getting signed off by an instructor. Two years...

That would be me, then — I have a tiny patch of pavement under the wheels, but grass otherwise. I start to see bits of mold on my covers after 5–10 years, but never on the plane itself. The big thing I keep an eye out for is bird droppings, because they like to perch and poop, and it's...

All the planes at my home airport are parked outside, and I've never seen or heard of anything like this. My 1979 PA-28-161 was last painted in the early 1990s, and, AFAIK, has been outside through every Canadian winter and summer since. The paint is getting a bit dull and worn now after ~30...

I make my aid colleagues uncomfortable by saying (with some exaggeration) that we should trust caseload numbers in a humanitarian emergency only as order-of-magnitude estimates. For example, if a joint needs assessment a week after a typhoon says there are 200,000 people in need of assistance...

The GTX 345 transponder is another option. That's how I get my Bluetooth connectivity in flight.

Point: Counterpoint: Simulations have their value, but they're based on data models that are coarse-grained codifications of the designers' biases, with reshaping to fit historical data. Corporations, governments, aid organisations, militaries etc all benefit from running simulations, but...