hello,
I went flying last saturday and for the first time since I got into this hobby I actually had a bad day of flying. I went flying at about 10A.M, it was about 28 degrees out. I managed to get one good 10 minute flight in, then in the middle of my second flight I had a dead stick, and since I fly at a very hight altittude I had plenty of time to choose my landing. I then refueled, checked my high idle mixture screw and gave it a few clicks rich. I fired it up, taxied out and began my takeoff. As soon as I took off my engine cut out!!. I landed right away and repeated what I did before and It happend again!!! luckly there was no damage to the plane. the engine Im running is an os .46 fxi out of my nexstar, which works beautifully in a towers trainer. sorry Im rambling on but I was wondering if the temp outside could have caused the dead stick?

Have you flown this plane successfully before? Could there be a tank position issue? It sounds as though you know there will need to be a richening of the needle valves because of the denser air. 28 degrees is definitely not too cold. Our engines (like all internal combustion engines) love cold, dense air.

Could be bubbles? Stuck clunk? Check out the tank. It could have developed a crack or something. I had this problem last weekend with one of my planes. Flew great last time out. This time, the tank was cracked--no hard landings, or anything, just cracked on it's own.

check it all out. You should get great flights with those temps!

Could have been to lean, could be other problems. To check if it's still lean after you adjust the high speed needle, get a firm grip on the plane, have a helper bring the throttle to full speed and hold the plane vertical for a good 10 seconds. If the engine slows down, it's too lean. If it speeds up a bit at first and holds, it's about right. If it speeds up significantly, it could be a bit too rich.

Edit: anything below 50 is getting too chilly for me. Flew the last 2 Sundays, it was in the 60s.

I have flown this plane for the past 2 months with no problems, but now that you mentioned it, the tank is out of the nexstar I had and could very well be the problem. I'll do some further inspection of the tank and let you know what I find.....thanks for the advise..

I regularly fly in the cold -- you have to re-tune the low speed mixture as well as the high speed mixture.

For example, with a TT 46 Pro, in the range of 15F - 20F, I have to retune the high speed mixture by ~1/2 turn (richer) & the low speed mixture by 1/4 turn richer.

Another thing to watch for is solidification of castor oil if the temp gets much lower than 15F. It forms solid waxy particles in the fuel -- use syn oil in very cold temps.