Today was going to be a fun day taking 3-of
my grandkids for a short flight. I took
Taylor, my granddaughter up first. We flew
around the south end of the valley for about 20 minutes then returned to the
airport. We taxied to the hangar and I
shut off the engine. Taylor exited the
aircraft and Kaleb climbed in. I
restarted the engine and the oil temp was quite high. The cylinder heads were also very hot, over
240o. I taxied out to the runway and attempted a take-off. I could not attain a 55 knot airspeed with only 1500’ left on the runway so I
aborted the take-off. By then both CHTs
were in the red. I taxied back to the
hangar and shut it down for the day. The
OAT was 36c and there was a hot wind blowing.
I think shutting the engine down for about 5 minutes and then restarting
was too much for the cooling system. The
engine became too hot just sitting for that time, retaining heat instead of
losing heat. I am going to have to do
something about that if I am going to continue flying during the hot
weather. I have checked the VansAirForce
website and relocated some posts about a heat shroud between the muffler and
the oil cooler. I will be doing the 25
hour 1st oil change in the next few days and will see about
installing a shroud while the lower cowling is off.
