bigbloke,
I transitioned at about 200 hours. For the first few hours I did feel I was very busy in the circuit, operating the constant speed prop, monitoring the manifold pressure gauge, learning to use a combination of cowl flaps and mixture to control cylinder head temps via the GEM, and of course remembering the undercarriage. On X-country flight remembering to ease off the throttle as you loose altitude to prevent excessive manifold pressure was something I found hard to remember, as I was often distracted by ATC.
By far the biggest thing to deal with was wading through all the stuff about mixture control (ROP/LOP), manifold pressures (Undersquare/Oversquare), and just what exactly was the Manifold pressure gauge reading anyway, and what do the number mean? and cylinder head temps, what does the manufacturer say (engine and airframe don’t always agree!) is OK, vs. what the engine rebuilders say, vs. what other owners say and so on ad nauseum. (Bottom line keep them below 380 deg) so that one understood what one was doing, what effect it had on the engine, on fuel consumption, on engine life, etc, etc so one could be fairly sure one was not abusing ones engine.
(Very important when you own the aircraft, and pay the bills)
Total time before I felt comfortable flying the aircraft and handling the extra systems by the numbers, about 6 hours. I’m still learning about all the engine stuff though, and finding out there are so many old wives tales that were taught to me, and are still taught to students that are completely wrong about engine management.
Regards,
White Bear.