Flight to Pecos
Tanya and I flew out to Pecos (PEQ) today. About 2hrs 300nm each way, burning 6.8gph doing 150kts (true) at 13500′. Yee, Haw! Super fun. There were some Marines that arrived, of course they were happy to show off their machines after having a Pecos burrito.
This was pretty much a fuel stop scouting mission for our trip to LOE in a couple of weeks. From Pecos, it is just another 100 miles over some small west Texas mountains to where LOE is going to be. Density altitude at Pecos was over 5000′. That was new for me. It will be higher at LOE. The DA at 13500′ was 15500′. I could really tell that the airplane wasn’t too interested in climbing much higher.
I basically spent four hours having a ball playing with mixture. Yeah, it will run LOP, but it isn’t quite stable enough for me to be comfortable in that territory. When pushed LOP, with everything else stable, I had that fuel flow under 6gph (doing 150 kts true). I’m happy with just under 7gph ROP, which is very easy to do by the seat-of-the-pants, but some carb heat really does help to be able to lean more before one cylinder peaks.
Tanya is slowly trying to learn all the little details of operating 4822C so she can take it by herself at some point. Part of that is how to put it back in the barn :). After we got back, Tanya pulled the oxygen bottle out and we refilled it. This was our first real refill. Actually more of just a top-off, but very cool to be able to do real quick in the hangar. All set for the next adventure.
Where is that new prop governor. This one seems to be getting a hair worse (surging at takeoff) each flight.
