poadeleted20
Deleted
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2005
- Messages
- 31,250
There's nothing wrong with sticking with the venturi system as long as you understand those "well defined limitations" and discipline yourself to stay within them -- which shouldn't be hard for a "German guy". :wink2:When my wife and I spoke about this topic, we decided to follow the recommendations, to drop the idea to get a good looking straight tail 172 and to get a newer 172 with a vacuum pump instead.
That was yesterday.
After some more digging into this topic, particularly in the Cessna 170 forum, where quite a few people happily fly IFR with a venturi vacuum, I am however not so sure anymore. Word is that venturi systems are, other than mechanical pumps which seem to be prone to failure, pretty much bullet proof. Icing would be the only concern, these were however not the conditions a 170/172 should be operated in anyway. It is also said that the icing of a venturi cannot be compared to the icing of a carburetor, as no gasoline is being evaporated. The only real advantage of vaccum pumps would be that the vacuum driven instruments are fully functional before take off, so that one could take off into low IFR conditions, what would however again not be something one wants to do in a 170 / 172. To go from a venturi system to a vacuum pump would therefore mean to give up a very reliable system, with well defined limitations (no take off into low IFR, no flights into icing conditions) for a system which is pretty likely to fail, what could happen anytime and which offers very little, if any, benefits over a venturi system under real-world-recreational-travel-IFR conditions.
Frankly, I am confused.
On one hand, we would rather make concession regarding the plane we actually want, in order to be safe(r). On the other hand, the arguments of the venturi advocates sound very reasonable and I don’t want to invest into a system which is less reliable and which advantages are actually almost irrelevant for us!?
Alles klar? Gute flieg'.