Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

1 Answers

Variable prop setting

Asked by: 2130 views Aircraft Systems

I fly a Cessna cardinal with a 180 horse lycomings engine. Should the variable prop

be set to 2400 rpm and manifold pressure at 24 as soon as practical after take off. Or

should the prop remain in and 2700 rpm through out the climb until reaching your 

cruising altitude. We are having this discussion with claims that higher rpm will help

keep oil temperature cooler on a hot day.

 

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

1 Answers



  1. Russ Roslewski on Jun 21, 2017

    I briefly looked at a sample POH for that airplane and it seems similar to the 182, in that the POH allows you to keep full power for the climb or reduced power.

    In that case, I’d do what I do in the 182, which is full power all the way up to climb altitude. Why would I want my climb to take longer? The sooner I get up to altitude the sooner I can set cruise power. I watch the engine temperatures, and if they start to get hot I will lower the nose but generally still keep the power in.

    Actually, the 182, I usually never touch the throttle between takeoff and beginning my descent. The MP goes down with altitude of course and up at cruise altitude (maybe 6000 or 8000 MSL), it’s right where I want it to be anyway.

    The 177 POH only gave “passenger comfort due to reduced noise” as the reason for the rpm reduction, which implies that keeping it full in is fine for the engine.

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


The following terms have been auto-detected the question above and any answers or discussion provided. Click on a term to see its definition from the Dauntless Aviation JargonBuster Glossary.

Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.