In preparation of a trip to CO I thought I'd check out her high altitude ops. I was pleased to find 800-1000 fpm yet at 10k. Of course this was solo with 2/3rds fuel. Full throttle and 2450 rpm.


Ice is going off the lakes in central MN

I made some gross assumptions on fuel and aircraft weight but figured you might be flying at around 1900 lbs. (1500 lb empty weight, 36 gal fuel and 200 lbs pilot and cargo). Then I calculated your approximate power based on your MP and RPM. I came up with .64. So if you have a 230 HP engine, you are running about 147 HP at 64%. 1000 fpm weighing 1900 lbs on 147 HP seems generous but not unreasonable. Rising air? Assumptions completely incorrect?

Looks like a beautiful plane and equipped nicely.

Agree, nice looking plane.

I am going to make a guess and say the is Detroit Lakes airport.

Squash wrote:I made some gross assumptions on fuel and aircraft weight but figured you might be flying at around 1900 lbs. (1500 lb empty weight, 36 gal fuel and 200 lbs pilot and cargo). Then I calculated your approximate power based on your MP and RPM. I came up with .64. So if you have a 230 HP engine, you are running about 147 HP at 64%. 1000 fpm weighing 1900 lbs on 147 HP seems generous but not unreasonable. Rising air? Assumptions completely incorrect?

Looks like a beautiful plane and equipped nicely.

Probably closer to 2150 lbs. yep, 230 HP, it was pretty cold up there, maybe 25 degrees. Steady climb, gradually decreasing with altitude. Perhaps the Horton STOL, MT prop, AWI exhaust and Seaplanes West engine mount help?!!! (Or at least offset the weight she's gained over 60 years!)

WWhunter wrote:Agree, nice looking plane.

I am going to make a guess and say the is Detroit Lakes airport.

Good eye. DL indeed. I headed East out of Moorhead and once beyond the 2500 ft TRSA started a cruise climb, hit 10k just before DL.

Let me know when your strip is open for the season.

I was thinking that was DL also. Small world!

fwiw, my plane with just me and half fuel weighs around half of yours the way you were flying it (1025 ish) and has half the horsepower 115hp and I quite often sustain 1000fpm through 8000+ feet (seen as good as 1150fpm at 7000)... obviously more goes into it than those two figures, but those are two important figures when looking at climb performance.... seems pretty legit to me