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At 10:55 AM 7/28/2003 -0400, John Bennett wrote: > First: My coupe also tends to turn to the right. Mebbe wait till the next election, see if it comes to its senses :-) >The ball is almost always right of center. Um...Orville? I think we have a problem. If the ball is to the RIGHT, you're yawing to the LEFT. Maybe turning. Maybe not. You know. 'Step on the ball.' 'Keep the right rudder.' All them CFI-isms. > I do have rudder peddles and have found if I center the ball with the > rudders, it has a detrimental effect on climb. I normally climb at about > 500fpm. Correcting yaw drops it down to about 400fpm. Now, I'm a bit more confused. We normally talk about 'rig' with regard to straight and level flight, and behavior in the stall. If you're climbing, it's fairly normal to have a bit of a left yaw. The Ercoupe's engine is canted rather severely to the right to try and make pedals redundant, and the H-tail keeps the propwash from bearing on the rudders so much as a normal plane. BUT all that is tuned for the standard prop on a C75. If you're running a C85, C90, or O-200, you're going to yaw a bit in full-power climbs. Whether correcting that yaw vs. letting it happen should cost drag, I'm not sure... ...maybe the inefficiency of yawed flight is less expensive in terms of energy than offset rudders? How does the plane do in normal cruise? How about in the mush/stall? > I'm not quite sure why that is but couldn't the correction be made in > the rudder trim rather than trying to add aileron trim? See all of the forgoing...is some trim really necessary? Or is this a high-power/low-airspeed condition only? > The other item I wanted to mention was that the rough running at > altitude that I was experiencing two weeks ago was indeed carb ice. I > tested theory out Friday morning. At altitude I pulled the carb heat on > and the rpm dropped about 200rpm then crept back up as the ice melted. > Thanks for all the responses. Just remember: Continental was a division of Kelvinator :-) > When I mentioned trying to lean out the mixture to my AI he said that > on my carb there is only two settings, rich and lean. Push the knob all > the way in for rich and pull all the way out for lean. He said that I > should run in the lean position above 5000'. > Any comments on that? I assume we're talking Stromberg here. While it is true that the Stromberg is pretty much self-regulating (NOT full rich if it's working right, but *self-regulating* below 5000, this is a Stromberg auto- and plane-carb engineering hallmark) and that 'full lean' won't kill the engine, there are most certainly settings between full-rich and full lean on the mixture control. And you shouldn't blindly yank it all the way out, but rather lean for best RPM coupled with smooth running. And do so by making small changes and waiting for the effect. Generally engines respond best to gentle attentions. Greg ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers-tech/
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