182 RG Engine dies at altitude

[haskell 298]

I just picked up the 182 RG yesterday. So far I love it. EXCEPT - I can't fly it in the winter! I take off from KPTK today - SCT035 OVC130 -3C - I climb out, everything is fine. I level off at 8,000 and after about 3 minutes I completely lose manifold pressure. The engine isn't dead, as if I pull the mixture it will kill it. It is running, just producing no power. So, I make an emergency descent and when I reach 2,300 the engine gradually picks back up, reaching full power at 2,000. I saw a post where carb heat was mentioned. So today I tried it with carb heat on for the full flight and the same thing happened. Carb heat on or off makes no difference. I have flown around NM at up to 12,000 feet with no issues... clear, cold weather. This is very frustrating as I would like to do some flying up north but it is impossible. Am I the only one having this issue? Anyone care to fly out of KPTK today and see if you can make it past FNT? Thanks,Eddie

[skyhawk 1]

Did you lean the mixture correctly?Otherwise I would say carb. icing. But if you already have tried to put on carb. heat, this my not be the reason. (If icing, also remember pitot heat)

[haskell 298]

Did you lean the mixture correctly?Otherwise I would say carb. icing. But if you already have tried to put on carb. heat, this my not be the reason. (If icing, also remember pitot heat)

Yep. Leaned using EGT. And, for the sake of this test, carb heat on from takeoff. I forgot pitot heat and lost ASI. But turned it on and it cleared up. So clearly was in icing and I'm assuming that is the problem. Odd that the carb heat wouldn't fix it.

[skyhawk 1]

Just finished a test with the 182Q. Weather conditions: clear/ -6 degrees Celsius at ground (-16 at 7000)/ trace icing.Carb.heat and pitot heat engaged from start. Climb on 90 kts - 700 ft/min. Lean on 3000 ft - next on 6000 ft. RPM and manifold pressure set according to manual. At 7000 ft a sudden power drop occurs. Oil temp drops rapidly. Nose down - maintain 75 kts. Engine starts to work properly again at ca 2000 ftI cannot find any obvious reason for the sudden loss of power... :(

[haskell 298]

Just finished a test with the 182Q. Weather conditions: clear/ -6 degrees Celsius at ground (-16 at 7000)/ trace icing.Carb.heat and pitot heat engaged from start. Climb on 90 kts - 700 ft/min. Lean on 3000 ft - next on 6000 ft. RPM and manifold pressure set according to manual. At 7000 ft a sudden power drop occurs. Oil temp drops rapidly. Nose down - maintain 75 kts. Engine starts to work properly again at ca 2000 ftI cannot find any obvious reason for the sudden loss of power... :(

Well misery loves company! At least it's not just me.

[raymar 969]

Just finished a test with the 182Q. Weather conditions: clear/ -6 degrees Celsius at ground (-16 at 7000)/ trace icing.Carb.heat and pitot heat engaged from start. Climb on 90 kts - 700 ft/min. Lean on 3000 ft - next on 6000 ft. RPM and manifold pressure set according to manual. At 7000 ft a sudden power drop occurs. Oil temp drops rapidly. Nose down - maintain 75 kts. Engine starts to work properly again at ca 2000 ftI cannot find any obvious reason for the sudden loss of power... :(

Make sure you have plenty of junk food and hot chocolate with you, the engine might not start back up next time.

[haskell 298]

Make sure you have plenty of junk food and hot chocolate with you, the engine might not start back up next time.

LOL. It was nice to brush up on my emergency landings. Of course, when the engine comes back at 2,000 feet makes it pretty easy. I'm SURE I would have made it... but, uh, yeah it was nice.

[skyhawk 1]

Hmmmmm...I have not experienced this issue before. Climb-out at 90kts/700ft per min. with carb. heat on may look a bit strange. I am not sure if the real 182 will climb that fast with with cab. heat on....The sudden powerkill at 7 - 8000 ft may indicate carburetor icing. There are no response from any of the leavers when the RPM drops. I may suspect the carburetor heat to not function properly - maybe a bug?....I also tested the pitot heat. Without pitot heat engaged, some gauges like the airspeed indicator stopped responding suddenly. Putting on the pitot heat, made them start responding again within a minute.But, the carburetor heat seems to make no difference - so I guess that I will have to fill up with junkfood and hot chocolate, as the Norwegian mountains are pretty cold these days..... :( :( :(

[skyhawk 1]

Well, I also tried the Cessna 172N under similar conditions. Extensive loss of power at 8000 - picked up RPM again at 2000. Carburetor heat seems to have no influence.When this happen, throttle leaver does not respond at all. RPM drops suddenly from 2200 to 1300 (seems like the engine is running under some kind of emergency program). Oiltemp. drops to critical low. It appears that this issue only occurs at wintertime - in cold air. So the question is: Is this a bug, or is it caused by wrong handling of the aircraft?... :(EDIT: - last update!Did the same test with a similar aircraft (with similar performance). This was not a Carenado model. Reached 8 - 9 - 10 000 ft without mentionable loss of power. During climb, the carburetor heat was engaged. A slight loss of RPM indicated a normal operating carb.heat.I did not notice any physical response while engaging the Cessna 182/172 carburetor heat.....Fernando: Please check if the carburetor heat operates the way it is supposed to..... :(

[flaminghotsauce 1]

Huh. I will have to check mine. I haven't had it but a week or two, and I haven't had it up that high yet.

[skyhawk 1]

Please let us know the result..... :( I did an other test with the Carenado Cessna 206. This aircraft has fuel injection, and therefore no carburetor heat. No problem climbing to 10 000 ft.I will more and more suspect carburetor icing and a non-working heater to cause the issue. :(

[flaminghotsauce 1]

I'm not seeing what you guys are seeing. I did the test three times. First time in "Fair Weather". No problems. Second time, I used real world weather which is currently 19 degrees f, clear skies. no problems.Third time real world weather, but I added a solid overcast, two miles visibility. No problems. In all three flights, I ended up at 9,000' 21" manifold pressure, 2400 rpm, Approx 110 knots indicated. The carb heat worked to slow the engine, and affect the altitude or climb rate. I applied carb heat a couple times during the climb in each scenario, and after I got stabilized in cruise at 9,000'. The engine was producing proper power all the way. If it means anything, I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and I have SP1 and SP2.Are you guys flying in dense cloud? Are you using add on cloud packs? I'm all stock except for the Carenados.

[skyhawk 1]

When doing these tests, I applied weather settings manually. Icing was set to

[Guest BeaverDriver]

When doing these tests, I applied weather settings manually. Icing was set to

[skyhawk 1]

Thanks for wise words BeaverDriver. Yes, I was also wondering about icing at that low temp. Of course, you're also right about the dewpoint. If dewpoint and temp are equal, you will probably be looking into a wall of fog. Irregular dewpoint settings, may have caused some trouble.Anyway, I did a new attempt today. Similar conditions as yesterday (user-defined weather), except that icing was set to none. The 182 had no problem climbing to 10 000.I also applied the carb. heat a couple of times during climb, and the physical reaction was what I expected it to be (a little loss of power). So the carburetor heat works.And finally the Cessna 182Q is equipped with a Continental O-470 engine, which has carburetor.