Be a Smooth Operator

 

“Be a Smooth Operator”

Reduce power slowly. I won’t restart the holy war about “shock cooling” here–some pilots believe in it, others don’t–but there’s no reason to chop the power on a piston engine unless you’re practicing an engine failure.

Unlike car engines, airplane engines are air cooled so they’re more sensitive to rapid temperature changes. When you reduce power from 2400 RPM to 1100 RPM, that’s not doing those pistons and cylinder walls any favors. Four cylinder engines like the Cessna 172’s Lycoming IO-360 are pretty resilient, but large six cylinder or turbocharged engines do not handle such abuse nearly as well.

Get in the habit of planning your descent so you can slowly and smoothly reduce power over time, instead of one big pull. At the very least, your passengers will appreciate it. In fact, when I first checked out in a Cessna 210, my flight instructor told me that I couldn’t reduce power more than two inches of manifold pressure every two minutes. Was that overly conservative? Maybe. But it did help me develop a smooth touch on the throttle., the key to being a safer smarter confidant pilot is being a “Smooth operator” 
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Wishing you blue skies, tailwinds and safe flying!