Stephan_Schwab wrote:
My climb is full power, full rich. My climb is with power pulled back a bit to keep speed around 150 kts. Should I worry?
Probably a typo, and you meant to write “my cruise is with power pulled back a bit”? Because on a ROP climb, you want to leave the power lever full forward to get the extra fuel to keep your engine cool enough (cf. this thread). Also, at 150 kts there wouldn’t be much of a climb rate.
Then I don’t see what would be wrong with this practice or why you would get shorter engine life, though I would recommend 380F as a temperature limit and not 400. And as I commented on another thread, in my humble opinion your “regular TIT limits” are chosen too high as well.
Peter wrote:
You will never make money by telling him that he is stupid and that your great new widget will prevent him exercising his stupidity.
Car salesmen obviously manages to do exactly that 
If fiddling with controls is important, sports cars typically have a F-1 style gear changer system in addition to the usual automatic gear box. There is an “off” button on the traction control and the automatic road holding stuff, a “sport” mode in addition to “normal” and “eco”. With FADEC all kinds of “fiddling” devices can be put in, but the engine is still FADEC. There is no reason why a single lever control can not be fitted with an additional “manual” control of RPM for “manual” operation for instance (but it would be rather stupid in most cases, except aerobatics and short field).
Silvaire wrote:
Starting isn’t problem either for me – carbureted Lycomings start right up, hot or cold.
The carbureted ones will, yes. I never had a problem starting the O360 hot or cold, even though cold it needs a LOT of fuel to start and that has lead to carburetor fires in the past. I usually get it to start on the first try now I know it, in the beginning it took up to 3 tries until I got the hang of it.
Injected is a totally different story however. They usually start well enough cold, but I’ve seen more than one M20J or Seneca or Arrow turn and turn and turn, burn their starter motors e.t.c. trying to start the IO360 when it is hot. Whole articles have been written on the technique to get them running. I remember the Senecas. We used to give those engines at least 1 hour cooling time before we tried to restart them. And on take off, practically every time you got them into overboost before catching the throttle to have the lights go out. No wonder these things need new cylinders early.
What GA needs are bullet proof engines which run with one engine master switch and a throttle, monitors its own limits and acts accordingly. In short, that is what diesels do today. With technology like that, even GA planes could get auto throttle and fully functional autopilots like in an Airbus.
In jets and turboprops, this has happened a long time ago. Try starting an A320, it’s just 3 steps: APU Bleed on, Start selector to Start and Engine Master On. If I remember the Caravelle, it was science: Bleed on, starter hold, wait for N2 to reach 20%, open fuel, wait for light up, watch the temps, check for hot starts, e.t.c. until you got it settled. It was fun for a while but got old eventually.
Or the Saab 2000 with it’s FADEC. No prop control, all you did is set the % power you wanted (called power units) and that was it. Easy as hell to use. and nobody will ruin an engine by firewalling it.
