ORIGINAL: camdyson
Just as an aside, attach a stick or similar to your electric starter, and tach' it. Let's say it spins at 2500rpm. Now get your engine running at the same rpm, say 2500, and look where the throttle stick is.
Nice tip, that! I noticed at the field today that the electric starter seemed to be outspinning the engine at the "couple clicks above idle" position and it didn't feel good.
Once you've set your full-throttle mixture (via main needle) with the stick firewalled, pull it RIGHT back with the trim up, and use EPA to get a reliable slow idle.
Actually this is exactly what I ended up doing yesterday.
Then bang it open - cut is lean idle, splutter is rich idle - tweak idle screw until get a smooth transition from idle. Once done, pulling the trim back (when at idle) should cut it.
It has a good clean ideal but I did notice today that the mi-range is a bit sloppy (unresponsive). So there's more tweaking to do. Still today it was idling steadily at 2500 with the trim a couple clicks down from the top.
I generally set my idle a bit on the high side for safety, then go back to mid-trim when preparing to land.
Me too. But this always seemed like just a "bad habit" because I didn't have my idle set properly.
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Just be slow and methodical and you'll be fine - I'll often spend a session at the field with a new plane just twiddling the engine and not even fly, which takes the pressure off. Go home, tighten all the loose screws
then fly it next time out.
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Absolutely! I figure a new model also gets the jitters and needs a couple of trips to the field before it flies just to get used to the place!
