Gary Ainsworth wrote: > 359 hours!! > Consider the average number of hours flown by a private pilot is 50 -75 > hours a year! Which means a couple of hours per week, with some weeks > interfered with; weather, job, family, health, etc.
First flight was May of last year, and the plane was down for 3 months while I built another engine after the crank break. I figured out the other night that between last year's Gathering (I finished the engine a few days before) and this year's, exactly one year, I did 292 hours. That's an awful lot of fun, and this afternoon I'm headed out early to get some more. It's not all fun though, as I'm also trying to learn and improve, as well as let others know what I'm finding. During the flight to my father's farm last weekend I spent the whole time messing with throttle, mixture, and carb heat to try to quantify the effects of carb heat, mixture, and throttle position on mixture distribution. When I have a chance to look at the data, I'll report back, but what's been clear to me for a while now is that when it's cold outside, running carb heat improves mixture distribution and fuel economy, at least at 10K' where it's cold. I really need to put some wheel pants on my plane soon, but the next time I expect crappy weather for a few days I plan to extend the gear leg brackets 3" to see what that'll do for landing speed. And there are several other lists a mile long... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net
