Mixture rich for taxi?

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Don’t quote me on this, but the above practise of not leaning the mixture in flight, is common training for a lot of "airline cadets" that fly in and out of Parafield.

It wasn’t long ago that I was talking to a friend of mine and he said that his instructor nearly killed him when he started to lean the mixture during this IFR training... words to the effect of, "we never ever touch that lever in flight". Maybe the instructor feels like he/she is flying a turbine/jet aircraft, which we all know don’t have a mixture lever. Not too sure if this is policy at this flying school, but I am under the impression that each aircraft you fly should be flown in accordance to the relevant POH. A good pilot flies a C152 within the parameters set out in the POH, likewise for a PA31 all the way up to a B747....

This practise of not leaning the mixture is nothing new, have heard about it before. Also some flying schools have SOP that all flights must have full tanks before any departure (regardless of flight time duration)...again a bad habit to get into as in the "real world" it isn’t just you and the instructor, there are PAX or cargo that also needs to be transported...most aircraft cant have full tanks and max payload, without being over MTOW. Lets see these flying schools get away with doing a few flights on MINIMUM fuel, have to divert and land at an alternate airport, without cutting into their reserves! I personally can’t recall any POH that states a fuel flow for full rich operations....

From past experiences and memory a P28A if leaned should burn around 31-32l/hr, a C182 around 42-47l/hr, C206/C210 around 55-60l/hr...Now if you were not to lean a C182, 206,210 fuel flow would be up around say 80l/hr? (Or there abouts). Now when flying fuel critical, its only a matter of time until you would run out of juice!

The mixture lever is there for a reason, USE IT!

As for leaning on the taxi, as stated before it depends on the individual aircraft some foul-up if not leaned, others will purr like a kitten.

Again I must stress don’t quote me on the above, with regards to a certain flying school telling their students not to use the mixture, "as you wont be flying pistons for too much longer". It just came up in conversation a few days ago...

Blue skies and happy landings!

CMN