High altitude ???
 

I'm thinking about moving from sunny So. Cal to Pueblo Co. I've located a chartered field and a hobby store thats not too far away. so my first concerns are covered. my question is how much of a difference will there be in the performance of my planes.

RE: High altitude ???
 

depend on the model. They will all take longer take off roles and be slower on their climb. Any plane that would marginally hover probably won't. You'll have to re tune all your engines.

RE: High altitude ???
 

Yeah, your mixture will change and you will lose power. I read here in a forum a few years ago that someone had calculated how much power loss per 1000 feet altitude MSL (Mean Sea Level) you would loose when flying at locations like Denver, and so on. If you spend a little time searching, you might find it.

I did the look-see for you. It works out to about 3% power loss per 1000 feet. Thebelow is for a 2 stroke engine that starts out at 1.6 bhp at sea level (OS .46 for instance).

Sea level 1.6
1000 1.552
2000 1.50544
3000 1.4602768
4000 1.416468496
5000 1.373974441
6000 1.332755208
7000 1.292772552
8000 1.253989375
9000 1.216369694
10000 1.179878603


CGr

RE: High altitude ???
 

Sportrider,
You need to go down to your local supermarket and ask them to let you stand in their walk-in freezer for 1/2 hour.
Immediately after that time reconsider this idea to move to Colorado.
You seem to be a desert rat - Colorado has snow, a lot of it!
I'm up in the low mountains of Northern California trying to fugure out how to get back to the Imperial or Coachella Valleys.
Just my opinions, we're all different.
Good Luck,
KW_Counter

RE: High altitude ???
 

Yes, Colorado is miserable. Whatever you do, don't move here :)

I have a 46fx powered nexstar and it does ok. It won't fly stupid vertical or anything. Actually, right now it won't fly at all what with the engine problems I've been having. There are plenty of folks at our club with Saito powered warbirds and they fly incredibly well. Also there's a lot of gassers around and they don't seem fazed at all by the elevation. In summary, you may notice a slight drop in performance, but doubt it's anything serious.

RE: High altitude ???
 

As I recall there were two Redlands, one by Big Bear and one up in Northern Calif. and both of them were quite a ways above sea level, how high is it where you are living? I moved here to the Vegas area from the hills just outside of Yosemite and I flew a lot down in the central valley and there wasn't any difference that I could notice. I have talked with guys from Denver and was told they just bumped up the nitro content in there fuel and it corrected the problem of lost power? I have also been told that they just run a little bigger engine to compensate. For every problem there is a cure!!;)

RE: High altitude ???
 

Yeah, I guess my point was that there is not a significant loss of power by altitude, within reason, and there are two ways of getting around that. One is, of course, size. The other, is what Gray Beard suggests.. increase the nitro content.

CGr.

RE: High altitude ???
 

I live about 40 miles north of Pueblo at roughly 6200 ft. What is the altitude you are at now? I've flown my helicopter at this
altitude and at around 800 ft. There is a significant power loss at 6200 ft. They say that it is about 20% loss.

It looks like most of your planes are electric. Am I right? You will not notice the power loss as much with electric. The
air is thinner and you may need to reprop for better flight performance. Taking off will take longer distances and the controls will
not respond as sharply as they did at sea level. If you are using nitro fuels then you can compensate the power loss by increasing
the nitro content.

RE: High altitude ???
 

also since the air is thinner your plane will feel "heavier". this will increase your stall speed

RE: High altitude ???
 

the altitude of my field now is around 1500ft. I don't much care for the cold but I'll adapt if we do in fact make the move. thanks for the info!!!

and DenverJayHawk, I may be seeing you soon;)