So this weekend, the weather told me that if I didn't get out and fly, I was an idiot. Sooo, I changed the oil and went flying. I've wanted to try this for sometime now, and since I was alone, I thought why not.
I took off, and started climbing up to see just how high up the plane would get me. I did fill all the way up, so was not super light. I climbed between 800-1100 fpm up to about 12,500, and then to keep temps down, and my speed around 110 mph I reduced my climb to about 500 fpm. at about 15,500 I was climbing around 2-300fpm. at around 17, it was getting very hard to keep the engine happy, so I stopped at 17,500 to see what I could get my cruise speed up to. I trued out around 148 mph :(. I was hoping to see a little more up there, but oh well.
One thing that surprised me though, and why I am posting this. I thought I would end up getting to a point where my AoA started getting to high, and I would lose too much speed to keep altitude, but rather, my engine was my limiting factor. In that I could no longer properly set the mixture. If I leaned any further from where I was, I could VERY noticeably feel the plane slowing down, and the engine would struggle to maintain RPM. If I richened any more, and I mean within two twists of the knob, the engine would again start stuttering/bogging? down. Hard to explain. Felt like it was loading up. My EGT's also were not consistent at all, with number 4 getting very cold down in to the 900's. I know being NA is going to be a factor, but I thought I could still control the mixture enough to keep the engine somewhat happy?
Also, once I sped up to max speed, I am sure I could have climbed further and get in to Class A, but I called it off early.
Was I doing something wrong? Just normal limitation of literally being at half atmosphere? Due to old age? lol. Plane, not me of course hehe.
Only pic I took inside: