Apr 1

Written by:
4/1/2010 4:52 PM 

I finally got around to trying a nitrous system on my plane!! WOW!! It is impressive stuff!

My home airport is at 4830' MSL. This morning it was about 45 degrees. I'm not sure exactly what the nitrous jet size was but it was plenty to be sure. I started the take off roll and hit the NOS button just before lift-off speed, this is about 3500 rpm. The engine quickly accelerated to 4500 rpm and the climb was nearly straight up maintaining 100 kts. My old VSI is only a 2000 fpm unit and it was pegged. My electronic VSI (MGL Flight2) was showing 6500 fpm. I passed right thru pattern altitude and kept going up to 11,000'. I got off the NOS button and leveled out. The engine temps were high but not too high. I'm guessing all of this taking less than a minute based on the VSI value but it sure felt like less than that.

After letting the temps come back to normal I decided a speed run was in order. Starting at 11,000' and 125 kts indicated, I pressed the NOS button and held on! RPM jumped to 5500 rpm and speed shot thru 240 kts IAS VERY quickly. I started getting scared so released the NOS button and pulled up. I finally got leveled off and slowed down a 16,500'.

This NOS stuff is RRRREEEEEELLLLYYYY KEWL. I currently only have a 10lb bottle but think I'll install another one just for fun!!