Newps wrote:


Steve Schneider wrote:


I've managed to do this once at a high altitude airport. We've flown
into Big Bear (L35 eleveation 6752) many times in the Turbo Lance II.
On one particular landing the engine coughed and died as we rolled off
the runway. Mixture was just a bit richer than it should have been.
Never had it do that at lower elevations. Hot starts are always a
pain, worse so at elevation it seems -- but I did get it running again.



I see this every summer. We're here at 3650 MSL and you flatlanders fly
in here and go to full rich to land. Engine dies on rollout and you tie
up the runway while you pour good gas after bad trying to restart your
flooded beast.



There are many 'flatlanders' who fly into high altitude airports without
having had proper instruction on operating in that environment. The
typical problem is the high density altitude, overloaded departure that
ends up costing lives -- it happens a little too often at Big Bear.

That said, in many years of flying in and out of Big Bear (we have our
own tie down and keep a car at the airport, since we're up there quite
regularly) I haven't seen aircraft stalled on the runway or taxiways due
to a flooded engine being a common problem. In my case, I was perhaps a
1/4"-1/2" richer than normal on the mixture to keep the CHT down on a
particularly hot day (the turbo Lance is known for poor engine cooling
due to the cowl design), but far from full rich. However on any given
day, if you wander over to the fuel pit you'll often find the
un-initiated 'flatlanders' draining their battery trying in vain to
restart a flooded, hot engine after fueling.

When I learned to fly at NAS Alameda, the club would not permit pilots
to fly into airports above some specific elevation (which I've now long
forgotten) until they had logged a high altitude check out with a club
instructor. My indoctrination was in a Cardinal RG at Lake Tahoe back
in '81, by cracky. I know there currently are clubs down here in
flatland San Diego that don't have a similar requirement, but they
should. No doubt it would save some lives.

Steve