On 2007-05-02, Brian wrote:
Agreed, But how do you make a simple rule of thumb for this for pilots
with less then 100 hours or like my latest student that is starting
his primary instruction an an airplane with a constant speed prop.

You don't. You tell them to use the power setting tables in the POH. If
they are incapable of this, they aren't really cut out for aviation.

The problem with your statement is that with new, or low time pilots,
as is often typical in clubs, that are going to take it literally and
is you will end up with a few pilots running around WOT and 1500 RPM.

You won't because they won't make enough power to maintain altitude.

I doubt that is what you ment and the cyinder pressures have got be
quite high in this configuration, especially if they don't lean
properly either.

Cylinder pressures will be in the same order of magnitude as 'normal'
operation. You will neither climb nor go fast though in this regime.

For a pilot that barely knows how to operate the throttle and mixture
properly they probably ought to just stick with the "over square rule"

They probably ought to have some remedial training if they can't set the
throttle and mixture correctly! It's not even hard to do these things.

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