jlunseth

Breaking in an engine, TCM wants temps in the 300-380 range and power up, which is not always easy to do in the winter here in MN. They suggest increasing drag. So yeah, I am cruising around like a Piper these days.

In Minnesota prices range from $7.70 to $4.63, with a $3.68 airport right across the MN-SD border. The highest prices are generally full serve, with a fuel truck and line men, but that does not explain all of the variation. I have been breaking in a new engine lately, which is better done with long duration flights, so I have been flying an hour or so to get to the better fuel prices.

I will try to check the next time the cowling is off. I just had the plane in for maintenance so it may be awhile. I don’t recall just from memory.

Here is a great piece on engine break-in, don’t remember where I found it, it might have been on this site: https://pceonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ECI-BreakInInstructions.pdf As it happens I am breaking in my new Continental TSIO360LB right now. They want you rich of peak, which makes sense. They are looking for high pressure that will keep the rings seated against the cylinder walls, plus temperature moderation. I agree with the advice to run very rich, that’s what will keep the temps down. I would be very surprised if your Acclaim POH does not have settings for 65 and 75% HP rich of peak. Every POH I has tables with those settings. The TCM break-in instructions say to try to keep the CHTs between 300 and 380. They suggest that for low power regimes like descent to landing you should pull the RPM knob way out. I was reluctant to do that at first, but do it routinely now and it allows you to keep power up without gaining too much speed. Also helps to create drag, i.e. throw out the speed brakes and drop the gear. Mine are breaking in fine with this advice, just had them borescoped. PS: I thought I might have found the pceonline article on Moonespace. Actually, I found it on the Pilot’s of America forum.

@hubcap Come to the Angel Flight Central banquet in KC next fall, usually November, and if you do, let me know I usually have a table and some extra tickets.

I don’t understand how the PC might have an effect, but if it is chain driven, I have seen other chain driven applications where the chain rusts between two links, causing a kink in the chain. The device will have difficulty at that kink, or will stop altogether.

Left side, aft end of the cowl flap opening. There are three lines there, don’t know what they all are.

Here in MN, it is 7 dF today, the last three days have been below zero. Talking to my brother in ND it has been quite a bit colder up there. I travel a lot from MN out to western ND. It is a 400 mile, 6 hr. drive. It would be 8 to 10 in an electric vehicle with stops for charging, assuming I could even find a charging station out in ND. Since the Bakken was developed in the early 2000s there are more gas stations around, but before that if you were out in the country you had to drive 20 or 30 miles one way just to buy gas. Once in ND, we are completely off road quite a bit, or gravel at best. In ND they have gates to lock the freeways off, to stop Darwinian candidates from “might as well give it a try” when blizzards close the roads. Don’t think it is only in the far, isolated stretches of ND. I have run into 30 foot drifts in southern IA, spent a night sleeping in the truck with the engine running for heat once at Mason City. IA is the worst because the main freeways are north-south and the prevailing blizzard winds are westerly, causing massive drifting. Ice coats the roads in mid-IA and around Ames is the worst. I have watched semi’s being blown sideways off the road in Neb and Kansas, the ditches are full of them during a good blizzard. WI is no better. We have some Teslas on the roads in the Minneapolis area where I live. They are cute little commuter cars as long as you can park in your heated garage downtown and plug in in your heated garage at home at night. But for traveling around the upper Midwest, well let’s just say the death rate due to weather would go up quite a bit if we all had to do that. That doesn’t even deal with the tire issue. Sold cars these days all have factory tires made for fuel mileage. Paper thin and practically no tread, they are incompetent, unsafe vehicles on the roads in winter. I used to carry a tow strap in my Suburban and would pull ten or so of these vehicles out of their winter predicament every year, I don’t bother anymore cause I am too old to go crawling around in my business suit underneath one of those things to find a frame member to attach to. We see lots of business types who move here from the east or west coast thinking they can drive in the winter on those tires and in those cars. They buy a good SUV after a couple of years. Oh, and we have an animal here called a deer. They like to sit in the ditch and jump out in front of your new 80k sedan. In my Suburban I can see down in those ditches before they make the jump. Have never hit one, although I have many “green” friends who drive sedans who have hit more than one. That’s another reason people buy SUVs up here.

Well, just learned a new cold weather issue this morning. I needed to fly my plane from KFCM to Willmar for maintenance. On takeoff, I could not get the plane to level off. The trim was not working. I tried the usual suspects, tried the electric trim and when that did not work, I turned it off and tried forcing the trim with the trim wheel. That was not cooperating, so I let ATC know I needed an immediate return to KFCM. The trim was jammed in a nose up attitude. It took quite a bit of forward force on the yoke to keep the plane level. Cutting power helped. On the short return to the airport I was able to get the trim to move just a little. The landing was still not simple, although the trim problem was less of a problem at slow speeds, which needs a somewhat nose up attitude anyway. On the ground I was able to get the manual trim to rotate and I ran the empennage from top to bottom a few times. The movement was helping. I had the line guys check the empennage to make sure it was actually moving when I moved the trim wheel. Finally was able to takeoff again with a working but slightly stiff trim and made it out to Willmar. Temp was -2 dF. I guess I need to check the trim for function using the trim wheel on cold days. Cold grease. The plane is not long out of annual.

I can only tell you what happens from a cold weather pilot’s perspective, but from that perspective the separators seem to work fine if they are allowed to warm a little on the ground. The day I had a problem it was about 12 dF and the air at ground level here in the MSP area is pretty dense on those days. I was in a hurry to practice some rapid descents and landings, and I got in the air right away. As I said in the other thread, I have not had trouble at cruise in some extremely cold temps - as long as the separator has had a chance to come up to an operating temperature before takeoff.

My plane is kept in an unheated communal long hangar. I plug it in the night before, or 4 hours before in a pinch. I don’t bother with cowl plugs or blanket. Oil temps are in the 50’s-60s even in Minnesota’s cold weather. Plugs and blanket are good if you are going to try to warm the engine out in the wind on the tarmac though. Cold winter ground level air circulating through the cowling is an excellent coolant for better or worse. I always let the engine run for awhile once started, to warm everything inside the cowling before taking off. The air/oil separator can freeze and block the engine from breathing among other things. Never had a problem as long as the engine compartment is given a chance to warm up, not even at -50dF in cruise, but it did happen once when I did not give the compartment a chance to warm. Just was out driving around in my car, its 3 dF here today and we will see negative temps in the next week.

I do visitstatesmap.com, and I believe they also have maps for Canada and the Caribbean. I did it that way, but it meant three separate maps. I have seen some people who have a single map covering all three. Then you have to decide the criteria -fly over?, landing? I don’t include a place unless I have actually landed there.

I have been asked at least twice to slow down for the Citation on approach. I wouldn't get in a drag race with them at cruise though. Hey, fast is what we Mooney people do!

For whatever reason, the iPad does seem to do a better job of maintaining the GPS connection even when my GTN750 with its dedicated antenna does not.

I hope they don’t dump all the VORs any time soon. I see GPS outages commonly in specific areas around the Twin Cities, typically near KGYL and KHCD, but other areas as well. More disconcerting, they seem to happen in the middle of approaches. If totally dependent on RNAVs to get down, now what do you do? They typically last only a couple of minutes, so if you hand fly the heading the GPS had you on, it will come back. But I don’t like it at all.

Says the J to the K. My favorite cruise number there is 177. What’s yours? Sorry, couldn’t resist.

That’s to set altitude. If you don’t have a type of AP that can climb to an altitude and level off, then it is just a warning, but I believe it is used to set altitude for the “climb to” APs. Not sure, don’t have one, but I know that is the altitude window. I have an Icarus SAM that I can set “climb to” altitude into and it gives an oral warning when I am getting there, or once there if I deviate, so I don’t use the one in the 275, but it works similarly.

Yes, I am aware of that, and it is only big enough to accept one value. I use TAS, I suspect that is what most people put there. I also suspect that if you Garmin were to try to program in a second value right next to the first one, it would mask or interfere with the markings on the AI when the plane pitches and rolls and the AI rolls correspondingly.

Its certainly nice to dream, but tell me, where on that small round face would you put more readouts? It is already cluttered as it is.

FWIW I don’t do the BMP that way in my 231 (pulling straight back until deceleration). The reason is turbo lag. So in the 231, if you pull back that fast the turbo is going to follow soon after and you will find yourself in “too lean” territory, then will push the knob back in, whereupon you will be powered up again and who knows where, lean, rich, or at peak. I have the vernier knob. I roll it back steadily until I get the fuel flow I want. Just takes a few seconds, I don’t dawdle. You want to make it smooth and let the turbo follow along as you do it.

If you have that much fuel flow the best thing for you to do would be to climb full power full rich cowl flaps open. Your plane will thank you for it. I can’t count how many of those full power climbs I made on the old engine in my plane. Hundreds, and some were from 1,000, which is ground level around here, to 21 or 23. I climb at 500 fpm to keep the airspeed and therefore the cooling up. That meant operating at full power for 40-45 minutes on occasion. Never hurt the engine. It made it to 2300 hrs and probably would have gone further, but it was just time to replace the 22 y.o. engine. Breaking in a new one now. Pilots and mechanics are figuring out that it’s a really good little engine. Sure, it has its quirks because we have to manage MP all the time. But the reputation it earned in the early days from running at peak and pushing the CHTs high was simply not valid, we had to learn how to run it right. Thank you GAMI and the other experts who taught us that. The biggest challenge is the high hot climb, in other words, climbing out of a western town into the flight levels in the middle of the summer. When I tried a cruise climb for that years ago the temps were really bad. Seems counterintuitive, but the solution is to put in more power and full fuel, which gets the fuel flow up to max. Even then sometimes there would be one cylinder that would get up around 410, not ideal. I have had new baffling put in and so far it is helping with the cooling issue quite a bit.

Just guessing, but that looks like part of a larger STC that included the GB, KB, LB - maybe the STC for the Merlyn? The Merlyn Black Magic is STCd for several aircraft, including several Pipers. So when the AFSM was put together for your aircraft, they put the entire Merlyn STC in it, its up to you to find the section of that STC that pertains to your particular engine, either a -KB or an -LB, but not the KB section. I use a full power full rich climb to whatever my cruise altitude is. I tried reduced power (cruise climbs) when I first got the aircraft and particularly out west (e.g. AZ, NM, MT, CO, SD, WY) the temps were too high in the cruise climb. Many of us try to get our A&P to set the fuel flow higher than the POH specifies, say 25 or 25.5 GPH. The extra fuel slows the combustion process down, allowing the cylinders to run cooler. You can always dial the fuel flow down from the max at which it is set, but if the max is not high enough, you can't dial it over the max it was set for. It appears to me that there is a bump in the fuel flow as you get to full MP, 40 in your aircraft? In other words, the fuel flow increases more sharply as you approach max MP. So it may be counterintuitive, but to get best fuel flow and cooler CHTs you need to go to max MP and max fuel flow.

I agree with Paul. The 231s have a GB or an LB, not a KB.

12 and 14 volt are the same. 12 volt is the current but it requires a 14 volt potential.

Of those three, Bahamas is my favorite. There are too many security issues now, to enjoy Mexico. Try to sit on a beach and there will be a constant stream of vendors trying to sell you tourist trinkets. When you go to a foreign country you have to understand, before leaving, that the rights and privileges you have here in the US no longer exist. To keep it short, I would not trust my airplane to Mexico. Canada is fine, but unless you are a hunter or fisherman, there is not much to see up there and flying-wise there will be some bureaucracy you are not used to, like having to pay for ATC services. I am a fisherman and have gone to Can many times to fish, the very best fishing is a fly out somewhere and getting the gear there, and the rest of the people in your group, generally means driving. Bahamas, now there is a gem. Yes, you will encounter some bureaucracy but it is pretty benign. Stay away from the tourist destinations and explore the family islands, Abaco, Treasure Cay, Long Island, Bimini, and on and on. Everywhere you go you will find friendly, honest and helpful people. If you want to do something while there, go diving, fishing, shelling, generally sight seeing in beautiful wilderness settings where you won’t see another soul. Great rum and coke in the evenings. Even if you just sit and enjoy the scenery, well, you are sitting on a beach coming to understand the true meaning of “aquamarine.” Try bonefishing if you are good with a fly rod, you won’t regret it. There is a pilot’s guide to the Bahamas, it comes with all the paperwork and explanations you need to fly there. Fly to Ft. Pierce, pick up the required life vests and a raft for the flight over. Fly out over Grand Bahama, then Abaco, then on down the islands, you are never far from land. Always be sure to call and ask if they actually have fuel, don’t just assume they do because it is on a chart. Be prepared to slow down, not be demanding, and relax on Bahamas time for awhile.