Originally Posted by
jmmoric
You are correct.
The leaning before taxi was something I was taught during training, for whatever reason... it never appeared on the checklists, and therefore the only mentioning is the "full rich" when starting, and "set mixture" before take off.
I'll have to review my procedures, and just follow the checklists more strictly.
Leaning for taxi is a very good advice to avoid fouling the spark plugs at low engine speeds. Learned it and do it routinely. However, the old hands highly recommend to lean very aggressively for ground ops, not just a bit. Why? Because the day will come and you will forget to enrich before takeoff, and that may put the "slightly leaned" engine straight into detonation. If leaned aggressively, it will just cough and quit when trying to set take-off power.