what_next wrote:
I’m afraid I have never heard of this gentleman
That does surprise me and I suggest you have a google on the man some time. John is a VERY respected pilot, a truly great guy and someone who has loads of experience with the issue of engines. He, together with George Braly (of GAMI) and Walter Atkinson run an outfit called Advanced Pilot Seminars on engine management. John has flown with the original Air America on DC3’s and C46’s, then was a DC8 and later 747 Captain with JAL before retiring and becoming one of the very select group to fly for the CAF including their flagship B29 “Fifi”. His columns on engine management, lean of peak flying and other issues have become standard reading for most of us, right up there with Mike Bush’s various essays. He used to own a Bonanza which had the very first set of GAMI injectors fitted. Walter Atkinson owned set no 3 and George Braly is the guy who actually developed them…
Apart from this, his book and his articles on Avweb make jolly good reading.
I’ve known John for over 20 years when we both posted on Compuserve’s Avsig forum, togehter with the legendary Randy Sohn (the guy who actually rescued the B29 out of the desert) and many others. Fond memories.
As for the issue: John as well as many others have stated their take on how to run the piston engines we fly many times. For my O360 fitted in the M20C, Bob Kromer of Mooney test pilot has published a series of articles about cruise power settings of the engines usually found in those airplanes as well, his contributions can be found here: MAPALOG Sample Articles
His take in a nutshell:
Non turbo engines:
Climb at WOT, max RPM and Mixture leaned to 100° rich of Peak.
Cruise at WOT again and 2500 RPM, leaned to 50° rich of Peak or, where possible LOP.
With Turbo engines he suggest flying at a fixed MP depending on which is the best for that engine, 2500 RPM and 50° rich of max TIT.
I am wary of the 50° rich of peak option but agree on FT on the non turbo charged engines any time I don’t need the reduced FF for range. Or possibly to reduce the throttle just so much until I see MP moving, which will reduce FF a bit without giving away too much power, but by all means keep 2500 RPM going for fast cruise, that is the setting these engines are built for.
On Leaning I am very much with John Deakin’s LOP philosophy when talking about injected engines, preferrably those fitted with GAMI’s. For my carbuertted one, I use a technique described to me by John but actually developed in years of research by that team: Lean slowly until peak EGT or engine just starts to run rough, then add 1 inch of carb heat until it runs smooth again and lean again to onset of roughness and then increase until the roughness goes away. What this will do is that it will actually produce a LOP cruise for carburetted engines (about 50° lop) and it will decrease FF massively while loosing very few power. In LR power setting like this, the O360 A1D will come down to approximately 31 lph / 8.2 GPH while producing some 140 kt TAS at 2500 RPM.
Flyingfish wrote:
Normally I do not exceed 2550 RPM in cruise, but when really high 2600 gives a welcome boost.
65% power (at peak EGT) burns between 9 and 9,5 GPH with CHTs around 360 F
@Flyingfish, did you know that you will burn your exhaust valves if doing this (peak EGT)? 
Aviathor wrote:
did you know that you will burn your exhaust valves if doing this (peak EGT)?
Operating peak EGT /= burnt exhaust valves.
There’s nothing wrong runing at peak EGT as long as the CHTs are under control and <75% power.
Michael wrote:
Operating peak EGT /= burnt exhaust valves.
+1
I thought we had just discussed that OWT here about a month ago.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
That does surprise me and I suggest you have a google on the man some time.
Given that he is a) in Europe and b) an instructor, I am not the least bit surprised. I have yet to meet a flight instructor in Europe who is enlightened about operating a piston engine. I am still trying to find out at what point everyone in Europe decided to turn the wrong way, discard the data and follow some misunderstood handbook exegesis instead.
did you know that you will burn your exhaust valves if doing this (peak EGT)?
More than one smiley was required there, and Michael’s quote removed the one which was used 
Also irony does not travel well across the internet and different languages.
There’s nothing wrong runing at peak EGT as long as the CHTs are under control and <75% power.
For Lyco/Conti engines, exactly.
Limiting this engine to 2400 RPM literally cripples the aircraft’s performance in all flight regimes
I am not surprised. That would knock about 3000ft off my ceiling (2575 rpm max)! The engine can’t breathe in the required amount of air at 2400.
I have yet to meet a flight instructor in Europe who is enlightened about operating a piston engine. I am still trying to find out at what point everyone in Europe decided to turn the wrong way, discard the data and follow some misunderstood handbook exegesis instead.
Probably because the flight training business doesn’t pay enough to enable instructors to fly a plane – other than a few who have stacks of money and time and instruct freelance on the side.
As regards Deakin, he dragged GA kicking and screaming into the 20th century, and I am a great fan of his
It needs to be said that he is not entirely without controversy because of his commercial involvement with the advanced pilot training/seminar business. It’s a bit like the church (any church) which needs to focus on collecting donations and bequests otherwise it will eventually cease to exist, and is open to criticism on these grounds.
Still, many people refuse to believe that peak EGT is OK. Especially turbo engine pilots, some of whom say, apparently correctly, that they can’t do it at 75% (85% for Conti) power without exceeding the TIT which is a hard limit temperature. For example I used to know a big piston twin pilot who was burning some tens of tons of avgas a year, flying well ROP the whole time.
To add to my earlier point about high altitudes, no plane can reach the ceiling at peak EGT because by definition the ceiling is reached at best-power! So, in the TB20, ISA, above about FL170 one has to go 150F ROP or so (and max rpm obviously). This is another reason why I don’t fly at FL200 just for a laugh – it drops the MPG some 20-30%. I already have a FL210 altimeter photo and don’t need any more
Peter wrote:
More than one smiley was required there
Don’t know how you understand them, but I interpret the two that you offer in the “standard” way that has been used since the Internet was invented:
= :) = I meant what I said but don’t have any hard feelings/am friendly
= ;) = I don’t mean that literally but was being ironic/sarcastic
Since he used , any irony indeed didn’t come across. Oops, now I see the difference actually and that he did use
Rwy20 wrote:
Given that he is a) in Europe and b) an instructor, I am not the least bit surprised. I have yet to meet a flight instructor in Europe who is enlightened about operating a piston engine.
Given that from his posts I regard him as highly competent and on top of that an aviatior at heart, I assumed that he might have heard the name. But not everyone hangs around the US fora. For what it’s worth, neither do I these days, but in the time it was only one real forum and they were all there.
Peter wrote:
Probably because the flight training business doesn’t pay enough to enable instructors to fly a plane – other than a few who have stacks of money and time and instruct freelance on the side.
I am surprised at that perception of FI’s here. Or maybe I’ve just been darn lucky. With one or two exceptions, all of those I’ve come across in my time were very dedicated people who had a passion for passing on their knowledge to newbies like me. I’ve had a ball with all of them with few exceptions, and in those cases we usually mutually decided to move on.
However, often enough FI’s are quite restricted in what they can show and what not by school SOP’s and sometimes by the predefined syllabus. But most of those I know also love flying, it would be a sad choice of profession otherwise.
Peter wrote:
As regards Deakin, he dragged GA kicking and screaming into the 20th century, and I am a great fan of his
Wow, well, he’d be pleased to hear that I am sure.
Re Advanced Pilot, it’s his creation together with George and Walter and for a while it was a bit like that too, not a church per se but something he just wanted to do. i don’t think he had anything left to prove, but it was and is something he’s passionate about. And who’d blame him. He’s lived an aviator’s dream and I have to say when I read the message about his stroke which took him out of the cockpit without warning and after a career like this, the way he handled that was also an absolut class act. That at his age (sorry John) he still goes on and “preaches the sermon to the heathen” just shows what a guy he really is. His book has a permanent place on my desk and it’s a signed copy too :)
Apologies for the slight thread drift, I had to stand up for us instructors.
Rwy20 wrote:
Given that he is a) in Europe and b) an instructor, I am not the least bit surprised. I have yet to meet a flight instructor in Europe who is enlightened about operating a piston engine.
There is only so much you can do when you leaning a C152, especially when it probably won’t have a EGT gauge and defiantly won’t have CHT gauges, What I do is point my students to John Deakin’s posts and Mike Busch, I also point them to this forum.
The differing views are not only among pilots, I spoke to one engineer (who maintains one of our leased aircraft) about leaning on the ground for taxi, I kid you not his face turned white and said in no uncertain terms that I am not to lean on the ground as it will cause the cylinders to melt. I then asked another engineer who also leases some aircraft to the school I work for and he would prefer us to lean on the ground. What’s an instructor to do? So, I end up operating the planes how the owner/operator dictates and then point my students to resources on the net about engine management.I boy! Some serious analysis that goes into reading forum posts these days! And even counting smileys to establish the spirit in which the posts are made?
I always operated the (rented) DA40 at 65% power peak EGT, got book numbers in terms of speed and exactly the same CHT as Flyingfish on the hottest cylinder ie. 360℉. Others however operated at 75% 100℉ ROP
Then one day, coming back from Braç I got some momentary shaking in the engine on departure from LFBI and returned for landing. After consulting the owner and mechanics, I decided to continue the next day after having done extensive run-ups and found nothing.
On the following 100 hour inspection a “burned” valve was found and the cylinder was replaced.
Looking at the engine data it seems like the shaking was due to a stuck valve (Cyl #4) which finally closed. One can see the increase in EGT as hot gases blow through the open valve before it goes back to normal.
Actually, looking at the greater picture, one can see that there is a change in the EGT for Cyl #4 shortly after 00:18:00. That’s when I felt the first shake. Then a second shake at 00:18:40
In any event, my operating at 65% peak EGT got the blame for the burned valve and I therefore decided to stop renting that airplane.
The owner consulted a number of mechanics who all said that this was predictable when operating at peak EGT. An EGT of 1600℉ or more would result in burned valves, period. Even at 65% BHP.
As a matter of fact the cylinder which was replaced was the coolest cylinder in terms of EGT but the hottest in terms of CHT. This was however dismissed by the owner.
I also used to rent a SR22 hangared the same place as the DA40. After the cylinder change on the DA40, I was instructed to not exceed 1450℉ EGT.
These two experiences were the last straw that convinced me that my rental days had to come to an end and buy my own airplane.
351Windsor wrote:
I kid you not his face turned white and said in no uncertain terms that I am not to lean on the ground as it will cause the cylinders to melt. I then asked another engineer who also leases some aircraft to the school I work for and he would prefer us to lean on the ground.
I find out soon enough if any of my pilots does not lean on the ground. In the last 5 years I had several flight aborts at mag check due to fouled plugs and it always had to do with someone not having leaned on the ground.
One case more that the days of 1930ties style engines should eventually be days begone. After reading so much about how many people can’t obviously operate them properly, eventually we shall need something more modern with the ease of operation standards of a normal modern car engine. After all, we don’t start our cars with handcranks anymore either and the last car I owned which had a choke also is a few years old…
