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3 Answers

Mixture setting when landing at a high altitude airport.

Asked by: 1059 views General Aviation

Per the POH of my Cessna 172M, when departing airports over 3,000' MSL, I should lean for best power before takeoff. 

What about when landing at airports over 3,000' MSL, should I still configure the airplane full rich? What if I need full power to go around?

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3 Answers



  1. Mark Kolber on Sep 04, 2023

    No, you should not go full rich for landing at a high DA airport. It’s mostly about the go-around.

    You should approximate the appropriate lean mixture. There are several ways to do it with various degrees of accuracy, but that 3000′ mentioned in your manual is also clueing you that all you need is to be in the ballpark. Twenty years in Colorado and approximating for landing is all I ever did.

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  2. snu164 on Sep 04, 2023

    Thank you Mark.

    Would a good estimation be just slightly rich of my cruise mixture?

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  3. Mark Kolber on Sep 04, 2023

    Depends how high you were cruising. On a long descent I am enriching a bit along the way down. One guide is EGT. As you start reducing power for the descent watch the EGT and try to keep it fairly constant with mixture adjustment. It should have you increasing mixture as you descend. But it’s really about being in the ballpark.

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