Originally Posted by
griffster94
Well I’ve got a question guys. And I hope that it’s okay to put here. How much damage do you do to one of these engines, if you shut it down with the key, rather than with the mixture. I recently have found that when me and my friend go flying, that for short stops, such as fuelling, we turn the engine off with the key. And the longer it stops, so if the plane is gonna be parked all day or if we are going to be moving away from it for a long period of time, we shut it down with a mixture. How much damage is it doing by turning off by the ignition rather than the mixture.
The short answer to your question is: No 'damage'. But I do hope the mixture is then pulled to ICO?
It's actually good practice to occasionally make sure that that the 'OFF' position on an ageing ignition switch in an aircraft with ageing wiring actually grounds both magnetos.
I have to ask, what is the underlying logic of using the key for 'short' stops and the mixture for 'longer' stops? I'm guessing that the engine involved is an injected one that's hard to start when hot?