Guys,
This morning really early I finally got in a flight. I tried
yesterday morning but decided that I didn't like the wind. It has been
blowing 15 to 50 all week and today ended up 15 to 25. Anyway I did a
straight out climb with the intent to try a duplication of the report
that Mark L. posted the other day. Remember I have a newly installed
Sensenich prop. Climb out was done at 100 indicated, 3000 rpm, and a
solid 1000'/min climb. I held that until I reached 7500' msl. I had set
the altimeter at field elevation and noted the pressure setting on the
altimeter. The temperature on the ground was 25 deg. I noticed that the
altimeter was not agreeing with the GPS altitude so I checked the local
atis and the setting was considerably higher. But changing the altimeter
made the GPS disagree by over 500'. I did 3 runs in different directions
of about 10 miles long each. Altitude and speed were easy to hold. The
GPS ground speeds averaged out to almost exactly what I am reading off
the airspeed indicator. The indicated airspeed was steady at 156- 157
mph.. I also did one more run after leveling out at 3000' just for a
comparison. After landing I went into the E6B function of the GPS and
input the data with a correction for temperature at altitude. In the
calculator you can quickly change each number and in each category and
find the best and worst case for the true airspeed. Mine had a range of
168.2 to 172.1. I know this isn't close enough for the purist but I'll
just take the average and call my true airspeed 170 mph. The calculation
from 3000' worked out to the exact same range.
The 3100 ran flawlessly today. Max. RPM with the new prop is 3350
and that is right where I wanted it.
With the long climb and decent I spent more time with my hand on the
mixture than the throttle. It was very sensitive to altitude today.
I topped it off with my best landing to date. Shut down was with a total
of 35 flying hours. For the first time in many weeks I put the plane away
with it not needing any thing fixed or attended to but fuel before I can
fly it again.- OH What a feeling!
Joe Horton, Coopersburg, Pa.
joe.kr2s.buil...@juno.com
