"Kai Glaesner" wrote in message
om...
On the PA-28 I fly the carb heat is (rather idiotically) immediately to
the right of the mixture control, which made my instructor sweat one day
when I was looking out of the window, and leaned over and pulled the
wrong one. Fortunately I noticed when the engine stuttered, before I'd
leaned it off completely, and a quick shove restored power!

Reminds me of one of my touch-and-goes in a (then new to me) Pa 28, when I
intended to pull the carb heat up to "cold", but instead pulled the
friction lock up...

It does make one wonder about "progress" in design. The PA-28 I mentioned
above is a late-1980s Warrior-II, and the carb heat is just to the right of
the mixture control (so you have to physically lean and reach past the
mixture control to get to the carb heat). The throttle friction is in the
vicinity too, thus making it susceptible to Kai's faux-pas.

Compare this with another PA-28 in our club which is 20 years older. The
throttle is a plunger-type, with the friction nut encasing the stem
(impossible to get wrong, albeit admittedly more fiddly than a lever), and
the carb heat is another plunger, placed sensibly next to the throttle (just
below and to the left, if memory serves) and a decent distance from the
mixture control.

Sadly, then, the designers of the later version made it easier to pull the
wrong thing, and more awkward to reach the carb heat. Oops.

D.