xerj wrote:
If you look at a performance chart, you'll see that the highest true
airspeed for a normally aspirated aircraft is more likely to be around
6000 feet or so.

Isn't that for something less than full power, i.e. 75%? I'm talking max
power.


Well, maybe so. My performance charts list speeds for 55%, 65% and 75% power
only. The only time I fly at full throttle and more than 75% is on takeoff, and
that's not a speed run... that's time to reach for the sky instead. Once I
level off, I'll throttle back to 75% as a maximum... conducive to long engine
life, etc. If the manufacturers had intended me to fly at 100% power, they'd
include a performance chart for that setting.

Of course, as I climb, full throttle yields less and less, unless I'm in a
turbocharged aircraft. Even then, it runs out of oomph at some point.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE