Hi FreedFlyer97231,
You are reading it correctly. I find that the developers try to make their actual aircraft performance as close to the table numbers as possible, but due to the amount of variables involved it is hard to nail everything exactly. My best advice, and what I like to do in cruise for normally aspirated / non-turbo charged aircraft, is to keep the throttle wide open, particularly at an altitude as high as 16K feet, and set the RPM accordingly. Manifold pressure is going to naturally drop as you climb. Also make sure that you have the engine properly leaned as this will get you close on the fuel flow side. The table might have a statement like 20 degrees rich or lean of peak to use as a target -- meaning, lean the mixture until the EGT peaks out, and then lean or enrich a tad bit more until you are hotter or cooler than the peak "hump." In order to do this you would want to make sure that the "Auto mixture" setting is off.
Higher altitudes (>5,000 ft) are, in my opinion, easy to set power for:
1) full throttle
2) rpm set to the value in the table
3) mixture leaned accordingly
Lower altitudes (say <5,000) can get a little tricky and you have to pay more attention to the manifold pressure. You have to be careful in some instances where you are running the engine in what is called an "over square" situation where the manifold pressure is greater than the RPM value (e.g. 25 inches at 2,400 RPM). This really only happens closer to the ground because you are going to lose 1 inch of manifold pressure per thousand feet of altitude gain. There is a lot debate on if this is really an issue or not and it all depends on the engine, but my best advice is to follow the table's recommended settings. In Barons, for example, you take off, and pretty much immediately reduce RPM to reduce climb noise.
At the end of the day, these are simulators, but I personally like to fly as realistically as possible :-).
Take care,
-cjflyswmu
Hi FreedFlyer97231, You are reading it correctly. I find that the developers try to make their actual aircraft performance as close to the table numbers as possible, but due to the amount of variables involved it is hard to nail everything exactly. My best advice, and what I like to do in cruise for normally aspirated / non-turbo charged aircraft, is to keep the throttle wide open, particularly at an altitude as high as 16K feet, and set the RPM accordingly. Manifold pressure is going to naturally drop as you climb. Also make sure that you have the engine properly leaned as this will get you close on the fuel flow side. The table might have a statement like 20 degrees rich or lean of peak to use as a target -- meaning, lean the mixture until the EGT peaks out, and then lean or enrich a tad bit more until you are hotter or cooler than the peak "hump." In order to do this you would want to make sure that the "Auto mixture" setting is off. Higher altitudes (>5,000 ft) are, in my opinion, easy to set power for: 1) full throttle 2) rpm set to the value in the table 3) mixture leaned accordingly Lower altitudes (say <5,000) can get a little tricky and you have to pay more attention to the manifold pressure. You have to be careful in some instances where you are running the engine in what is called an "over square" situation where the manifold pressure is greater than the RPM value (e.g. 25 inches at 2,400 RPM). This really only happens closer to the ground because you are going to lose 1 inch of manifold pressure per thousand feet of altitude gain. There is a lot debate on if this is really an issue or not and it all depends on the engine, but my best advice is to follow the table's recommended settings. In Barons, for example, you take off, and pretty much immediately reduce RPM to reduce climb noise. At the end of the day, these are simulators, but I personally like to fly as realistically as possible :-). Take care, -cjflyswmu
