3 ms·

At the risk of sticking my foot in it even further . . . I fly at 75% power until it cannot maintain that power Does that not mean that you are actually flyin

At the risk of sticking my foot in it even further . . . I fly at 75% power until it cannot maintain that power Does that not mean that you are actually flying at well under 75% of the rated power even if it is the maximum power available at that altitude?

sokoloff 6y ago
Yes, though normally aspirated pistons typically stay under 8500 MSL and very rarely exceed 12500 MSL. IIRC, you can make 75% power unboosted through around 7000’ MSL. I’d guess at least 90% of normally aspirated flight is under 7000’. It certainly was for me, even though my previous airplane could climb higher, it was slower up there, so I rarely flew it over 10K unless there was a screaming tailwind up high or terrible turbulence down low. If I looked over all my engine monitor downloads for power settings under 35% while airborne, I bet the average would be under 1 minute per flight and it would be between 200’ and landing.