Annual completed. Do you agree?

RickG said:
Q: After landing, do you lean again for ground ops while taxiing to hangar / tie down / parking spot? Or do you leave the mixture rich so the fuel helps with the engine cool down?
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Your engine is the coolest right after you taxi off the runway.

At the low powers you use to taxi, the mixture will have a negligible effect on engine temperature.
 
RickG said:
Q: After landing, do you lean again for ground ops while taxiing to hangar / tie down / parking spot? Or do you leave the mixture rich so the fuel helps with the engine cool down?
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I lean immediately and keep it that way until shutdown.
 
I'm glad the annual went well and you got it back in a decent amount of time.
I hate to hear you moved to KDTO, don't become dependant on the 150 x 5000 ft. runway. LOL.
Did you fine a enclosed hangar and are you in a shared hangar?
 
tecprotb said:
I'm glad the annual went well and you got it back in a decent amount of time.
I hate to hear you moved to KDTO, don't become dependant on the 150 x 5000 ft. runway. LOL.
Did you fine a enclosed hangar and are you in a shared hangar?
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Big shared hanger.

I was fine with 52F but my dad wants to be able to call an FBO and say "I am flying at noon" and have the plane fueled and waiting for him out on the ramp, and have someone else take it out and put it away, cleaned, etc for him.

I told him he could just call me and I would go do that at 52F for him.
He and I are at very different stages on the money versus convenience spectrum.

When he gets a 2nd plane, the TB9 will go back to 52F and the new one will stay at Denton.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Big shared hanger.

I was fine with 52F but my dad wants to be able to call an FBO and say "I am flying at noon" and have the plane fueled and waiting for him out on the ramp, and have someone else take it out and put it away, cleaned, etc for him.

I told him he could just call me and I would go do that at 52F for him.
He and I are at very different stages on the money versus convenience spectrum.

When he gets a 2nd plane, the TB9 will go back to 52F and the new one will stay at Denton.
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Must be nice to have a Daddy with a plane.

:)
 
tecprotb said:
I hate to hear you moved to KDTO, don't become dependant on the 150 x 5000 ft. runway. LOL.
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Also, I will keep proficient at the smaller stuff. The beacon cafe is going to keep me landing on that sidewalk of a runway over at Hicks :)
 
Well, decided to add my procedure which will probably attract buckshot. I live in the desert at high DA, especially in summer. The Tiger is tight cowled, baffles are new and it likes to get to 400* FAST ... like pattern altitude fast.

1. Lean to stumble for taxi after start
2. Normal run-up with mixture set for max performance
3. Normal takeoff - temps on the rise at 500 AGL especially if 100* plus day
4. Enrichening by GPH (for my from DA 8.8 GPH to 11-13 GPH depending on temps) during upwind climb to keep temps below 400* by the downwind turn
5. Downwind turn reduce throttle, let temps come down some, then lean again on downwind as normal temps permitting (engine analyzer - fast glance at #4 which is my hottest cylinder).

Might seem like a lot of work to some of you, but quite often I need the initial performance followed by an immediate cooling process during the climb.
 
Hey Bryan, There is a good video about leaning you should check out. http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=2274677932001, I have adopted a lot of this guys advise. Even what your A&P says about keeping it lean on an approach. I have been keeping it leaned from my cruise setting all the way to the runway, but am always ready for a go around and putting the mixture back to rich with the power. its all the same movement for me. power, prop, mixture all in on a go around..
 
I had my first flight yesterday since getting it back.
Amazing changes. I am now aware of how much I rode the brakes before.

We always taxi with the fuel pump on. Well if I do that and I go below 1k RPM, the Alt light comes on.

He said turn the fuel pump off, and I can takes at around 600 RPM and the alt light stays off.

Result is I can taxi MUCH slower and no need for brakes.

I flew 2 legs yesterday and only ever touched the brakes as it is required to set the parking brake.

I leaned aggressively, and landed at about 1/2 mixture and survived :)
That Annual was a great learning experience. Really expensive learning experience.

I will check out that video.

Thanks!
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
We always taxi with the fuel pump on. Well if I do that and I go below 1k RPM, the Alt light comes on.
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Who told you to do that ??

I leaned aggressively, and landed at about 1/2 mixture and survived :)
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Unless you are landing in denver, no need to do this. If you forget to advance your mixture during a go-around you can kill the engine at the worst time possible. For a plane with this kind of fuel system mixture rich aux fuel pump on from downwind to touchdown. While you roll out aux pump off mixture lean.
 
weilke said:
Unless you are landing in denver, no need to do this. If you forget to advance your mixture during a go-around you can kill the engine at the worst time possible. For a plane with this kind of fuel system mixture rich aux fuel pump on from downwind to touchdown. While you roll out aux pump off mixture lean.
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Mike Bush would beg to differ. Not that I agree with him...but he doesn't agree with you. And we all know how many have elevated him to aviation god status.
 
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JasonM said:
but am always ready for a go around and putting the mixture back to rich with the power. its all the same movement for me. power, prop, mixture all in on a go around..
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Just remember, power up, work the knobs right to left, power down, work them left to right.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Was based on the checklist that prior owner had in the plane.
I'm creating a new one now.
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You have a TB9, right ?

Take your your POH and look in chapter 4 and 3 for the items to include on your checklist. Page 4.10 states 'Fuel pump OFF' for procedures after engine start.

I am wondering about your statement that a running fuel pump gives you an Alt warning light. It really shouldn't, unless your fuel pump draws a silly current or there is something seriously wrong with your charging system. There is a fuel pump warning light, and that should be illuminated while the aux pump is running, regardless of the rpm.
 
timwinters said:
Mike Bush would beg to differ. Not that I agree with him...but he doesn't agree with you. And we all know how many have elevated him to aviation god status.
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What works for Mike Bush with >10,000 hrs of GA experience may not work for a low hour private pilot who is just getting familiar with his plane (quod licet jovi, non licet bovi). Mike Bush also flies a plane in which activating the aux pump at low power may cause the engine to quit.

The POH for the plane the OP is operating calls for mixture rich and aux pump on.
 
Mike not only does this, he advocates, in his seminars, that others also do this. And he acknowledges in those seminars that what he is advocating is contrary to the POH.

That was the point.
 
timwinters said:
Mike not only does this, he advocates, in his seminars, that others also do this. And he acknowledges in those seminars that what he is advocating is contrary to the POH.
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It is easy for him to advocate all kinds of things because he is at a very low risk of being held responsible for his recommendations. Every time he makes a maintenance recommendation, he relies on some other A&P to put his name in the logbook and take responsibility for the actions he recommended. He reminds me of the HMO phone bank clerks we have to deal with who tell us what is 'recommended' and why they can't approve a particular surgery.
 
weilke said:
You have a TB9, right ?

Take your your POH and look in chapter 4 and 3 for the items to include on your checklist. Page 4.10 states 'Fuel pump OFF' for procedures after engine start.

I am wondering about your statement that a running fuel pump gives you an Alt warning light. It really shouldn't, unless your fuel pump draws a silly current or there is something seriously wrong with your charging system. There is a fuel pump warning light, and that should be illuminated while the aux pump is running, regardless of the rpm.
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That's correct
Fuel pump warning light (green) is on when fuel pump is running.
As I decrease the RPM below 1000, Alt light comes on.

We have started leaving the fuel pump off and now we can get the RPM much lower before the alt light comes on.


This is another of those situations where we are new plane owners and the "expert" that owned it before said "I know the POH says blah blah but I do XYZ, and only run pure mineral oil, and use this starting procedure, etc"

So after spending a lot of time with the A&P we have learned not to take the "expert's" word as gospel if there is no logical explanation to back it up.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Fuel pump warning light (green) is on when fuel pump is running.
As I decrease the RPM below 1000, Alt light comes on.
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Has your A&P checked battery capacity at the last annual ?
Is your alternator belt nice and tight ?
What is your charging voltage (measured with a DVM) with the engine running ?

You should not fly that plane at night until correct function of your charging system has been checked. The aux fuel pump is on a 5A breaker and shouldn't draw more than 2. If this is enough to put a strain on a 60A alternator, you may have a problem. What happens if you turn on pitot heat or the landing light below 1000rpm ?

This is another of those situations where we are new plane owners and the "expert" that owned it before said "I know the POH says blah blah but I do XYZ, and only run pure mineral oil, and use this starting procedure, etc"

So after spending a lot of time with the A&P we have learned not to take the "expert's" word as gospel if there is no logical explanation to back it up.
Click to expand...

If you haven't done already, I suggest you sign up for socata.org and if you run into idiosyncrasies about your plane post a question there. There are a couple of TB9 and TB10 owners with lots of experience in the type, also 'the expert' will typically give you the correct answer with his first post.
 
weilke said:
Has your A&P checked battery capacity at the last annual ?
Is your alternator belt nice and tight ?
What is your charging voltage (measured with a DVM) with the engine running ?

You should not fly that plane at night until correct function of your charging system has been checked. The aux fuel pump is on a 5A breaker and shouldn't draw more than 2. If this is enough to put a strain on a 60A alternator, you may have a problem. What happens if you turn on pitot heat or the landing light below 1000rpm ?



If you haven't done already, I suggest you sign up for socata.org and if you run into idiosyncrasies about your plane post a question there. There are a couple of TB9 and TB10 owners with lots of experience in the type, also 'the expert' will typically give you the correct answer with his first post.
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I will check that stuff you mentioned. Battery is brand new but I don't have the numbers.

I am on Socata.org but I'm not a big fan that forum. Often questions are answered with a vibe I don't like so I tend to lurk there a bit and just post here.
 
Witmo said:
You're not going to shock cool any engine by going full rich at any time. There may be good reasons for not going full rich but shock cooling ain't one of 'em.
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Actually I have noted many comments about the IO-360 grey box that has issues with cracking the head component due to shock cooling brought on by the cold fuel hitting the hot cylinder.

Ted can probably straighten me me out on this one.
 
I don't know why you want to go to full rich any time you want to climb, any time the density altitude gets above 3000' you should be leaning about 100°ROP to get your best performance as well as curb your fuel consumption and lessen your pollution foot print not to mention saving your valve guides and seats. I realize you're at the bottom end of the performance scale and climbing LOP isn't in the cards for your application, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with climbing LOP. In my case I have a lot of excess horsepower at my typical flying weights so I will be LOP at the end of my first power reduction with no real risk because I'm under 65% power on each still climbing 2000fpm. I typically start my first power cut climbing through 200' AGL.
 
Henning said:
I don't know why you want to go to full rich any time you want to climb, any time the density altitude gets above 3000' you should be leaning about 100°ROP to get your best performance as well as curb your fuel consumption and lessen your pollution foot print not to mention saving your valve guides and seats.
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I'll take that 1 step further, why don't you lean 100°ROP during runup.
That way you would have the same procedure, no matter what DA you are at, you done the runup at the engine ROP settings you will maintain for the entire climb, seems silly to runup full rich and then doing adjustments at low altitude?
 
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teejayevans said:
I'll take that 1 step further, why don't you lean 100°ROP during runup.
That way you would have the same procedure, no matter what DA you are at, you done the runup at the engine settings you will maintain for the entire climb, seems silly to runup full rich and then doing adjustments at low altitude?
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Take off is an acceleration all event that starts at high load factors on the prop, it's wise to do the take off at (a properly adjusted) full rich setting due to detonation factors; with our engines, fixed timing and non electronic fuel delivery systems, the simplest way to avoid detonation risks is to fuel your way out of them. Once in a steady state of load, then leaning is just a matter of grabbing the red handles and pulling them back till the power note falls off the pipe and advancing them to peak and reducing then as performance requirements allow below 15° LOP. If I'm operating from a high DA field I will do my run up and lean to 'EGTs Alive' zone, if t's really high, say over 5000', I'll go ahead and lean to 125°ROP because my detonation risk is pretty much zero.
 
teejayevans said:
I'll take that 1 step further, why don't you lean 100°ROP during runup.
That way you would have the same procedure, no matter what DA you are at, you done the runup at the engine settings you will maintain for the entire climb, seems silly to runup full rich and then doing adjustments at low altitude?
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I'd like other opinions on that...
I have never heard run-up and takeoff on any other setting than full rich.
My POH included.

But again, I am still new at this relative to a lot of people here so willing to learn new ways to do things and the supporting info.
 
To each his own I guess. I personally would prefer to lean on the ground, at least till EGTs come alive, then rich it up a few turns to make sure you are plenty rich, and not have to make engine settings changes at 200'. I like to get gear up, flaps up, and make my turn out, then it's only about pitch and power. I also don't just slam the throttle forward, I take a couple of seconds to ease it forward, and try to avoid any extra stress on the engine
 
I have a TB9 also and have the same issue with the alternator light coming on if you taxi with the fuel pump on and let the RPM drop below (900 RPM for me).
I can't wait to see how low I can go with the fuel pump turned off! ;)

Jim
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I'd like other opinions on that...
I have never heard run-up and takeoff on any other setting than full rich.
My POH included.

But again, I am still new at this relative to a lot of people here so willing to learn new ways to do things and the supporting info.
Click to expand...

You may want to read further into your POH then under High Altitude Airport Operations. Unless you are turbocharged, it will give you a leaning procedure to follow before take off.
 
Ron Levy said:
Lean by ear for cruise (lean to first sign of roughness, then enrich just enough to get smooth again) and then leave the mixture alone until you either clear the runway (when you lean further for ground ops) or go around (in which case you push the mixture in along with carb heat as you advance the throttle).
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I always have trouble doing that. I have a constant speed prop. When I lean, I never really hear or feel roughness. If I go too far, then the engine just dies without too much warning. I can enrichen (is that a word?), and if I do it in time the engine will fire up again. In the air, the prop keeps turning, so it's not that big of a deal to keep it from completely dying.) Is this a problem? Any tips or advice? I try to look for a bit of a spike in the MP, but I have a hard time really seeing much of a change, particularly while I am in the air with everything else going on that I am trying to pay attention to.
 
PPC1052 said:
I always have trouble doing that. I have a constant speed prop. When I lean, I never really hear or feel roughness. If I go too far, then the engine just dies without too much warning.
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What type of engine ? Do you have a multi-point engine monitor ?

This behavior suggests that you have very evenly balanced fuel/air mixtures across your cylinders and that your engine smoothly goes to lean of peak operation before it quits.
 
weilke said:
What type of engine ? Do you have a multi-point engine monitor ?

This behavior suggests that you have very evenly balanced fuel/air mixtures across your cylinders and that your engine smoothly goes to lean of peak operation before it quits.
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It's a Lycoming O-360-A1F6D carbureted engine. Cessna 177B. No multi-point monitor. Just the stock cylinder head temperature gauge and oil temperature gauge.
 
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PPC1052 said:
It's a Lycoming O-360-A1F6D carbureted engine. Cessna 177B. No multi-point monitor. Just the stock cylinder head temperature gauge and oil temperature gauge.
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Well, there are carburetered engines that just happen to be well enough balanced that they dont run rough once they get past peak EGT on all cylinders. The 'running rough' in the Lycoming 'leaning by ear' method is the result of different cylinders making different amounts of power once you get to the lean side of peak (the power curve on the rich side is flat enough that even with the mismatch, the engine will run smooth).

Look at your performance section. Once you get to the altitude where you can't make more than 70% power at your chosen rpm, just lean to the best IAS or any number that seems right to you.

The other option would be to get an EGT gauge. They used to put single probe gauges into this kind of plane, but as you dont know which cylinder is the leanest, its a crap-shoot. The cheapest way to get multi cylinder EGTs is probably a standalone EGT unit from EI for $659 (+whatever hours it would take to install it, at least 10 I would guess).
 
PPC1052 said:
I always have trouble doing that. I have a constant speed prop. When I lean, I never really hear or feel roughness. If I go too far, then the engine just dies without too much warning. I can enrichen (is that a word?), and if I do it in time the engine will fire up again. In the air, the prop keeps turning, so it's not that big of a deal to keep it from completely dying.) Is this a problem? Any tips or advice? I try to look for a bit of a spike in the MP, but I have a hard time really seeing much of a change, particularly while I am in the air with everything else going on that I am trying to pay attention to.
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Don't listen for roughness, listen to the note of the exhaust and the engine, listen to its throat. When you are making power you get a solid note, the pipe is full and resonating with the back pressure. Then as you lean there will come a point where the resonance stops along with the back pressure, we call that 'falling off the pipe'. If you want maximum endurance, open the throttle wide and lean to there, now pull the prop back to the bottom of the green arc and adjust the throttle to slow down to L/D Max.

Now start easing the mixture forward and suddenly you will hear the note fill in within a click on the quadrant or half turn on the vernier knob. This is what we call, "the engine coming on the pipe" this is the beginning of the top slope of your torque band when you stick it on the dynometer. This is where you want to lean it for max range, which means it is basically where I lean to at 200' unless I need a hard climb to altitude which living in Florida is rare. To get max range, lean to this, reduce your RPM to bottom of the green arc, and slow down to around 1.3 L/D Max.

That is the spot to lean to that your engine will burn the fuel most efficiently. If you need more performance than you can get at WOT and full RPM, you need to add more fuel. The first increase you make to add performance is to manifold pressure. Maximum MP, leaned to the pipe, and minimum RPM that will attain a desired speed is the most efficient, and kindest to your engine, way to run it. Next performance increase comes from adding RPM. Only after RPM is at max continuous do you start adding more fuel. This is not only for efficiency but also for maximizing detonation margin in applications (typically turbocharged or low density altitude operations) where it is a concern.
 
Thanks, Cap. I think I am going to need you to demonstrate. Are you going to be in Indy any time soon? I'll buy you a dinner and beer.

Another question: How linear of a control is the mixture control knob? Does the amount of leaning over the first inch I pull it back roughly equate to one inch anywhere else along its range of motion?
 
PPC1052 said:
Thanks, Cap. I think I am going to need you to demonstrate. Are you going to be in Indy any time soon? I'll buy you a dinner and beer.

Another question: How linear of a control is the mixture control knob? Does the amount of leaning over the first inch I pull it back roughly equate to one inch anywhere else along its range of motion?
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I won't be in the US until end of July if I manage to make it in for OSH. I'm not sure if linearity of the control really applies since the effects of leaning are not linear. On the rich side, you have a broad range of leaning where performance won't change, just the fuel flow and quantity of unburied and partially burned hydrocarbons and lead out the pipe. How much excess you can't really tell without an EGT, and even then only to the lower limits of the EGT, until you look at the residue in the exhaust pipe and belly. The darker the color, the more waste. My exhaust residue that collects is a fine white powder, lead dust, no tan, no brown, no black, white; that's how lean I run. Then you have a range between 50° ROP and 10° LOP where you will see very little performance change for your fuel flow and then power starts slowly dropping off until 'you come off the pipe', then the slightest more leaning and power drops off dramatically and one more click and you drop below the LEL and no longer having enough fuel to support combustion. On the rich end, you have to get really rich before you start losing significant power or choke the engine and you'll be making black smoke like a B-52 on takeoff.
 
Bryan, I have family at Hicks, Im just out of Lake Worth in NW Fort Worth, but will drive down to Bourland (50F between Cresson and Granbury on 377) which is 25 minutes south of me to fly to hicks and meet my family for lunch!! Need a local flying buddy when your dad is out of town??
 
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