Cessna 172 Stalls at 7800 ft

When i do i climb in the Cessna, I loose a lot of power. What i mean is this, I was trying to climb to 10000 ft at a climb rate of 500 fy/min. I kept it in full power and at about 7800 ft i would stall the aircraft I couldnt get anymore airspeed out of it unless i leveled off there I thought maybe it would be cowl flaps but i didnt see a lever for that. The Cessna should be able to go to 10000 ft since searching online i found that the max is 14000 ft

You need to lean, the red handle by the throttle. At least 50% by that altitude.

OK, sounds like i am choking the engine

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Hello,
Welcome back to the forums! We ask that you use Community Support for help, not General Discussion. I have moved your thread.

Also, just a heads up that there are no cowl flaps on the 172. There are on the 182.

Thanks …after i looked at it in external view i knew that was the case

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The 172 doesn’t have cowl flaps, so that’s why there was no control for it. As for the climb performance, do you have mixture set to automatic or manual? If you don’t have automixture activated, then you will need to lean it as you climb. Also, you can’t just set the vertical speed at a given rate and leave it there during the climb (unless you set it low enough that the particular aircraft type can exceed it throughout the climb with no problem). If you just set a climb rate into the autopilot and the aircraft reaches an altitude at which it can no longer maintain that rate, it will start trimming the nose higher and higher, reducing airspeed until you stall.

The solution, aside from making sure the mixture is set correctly, is to watch your airspeed and reduce the climb rate setting as soon as you see airspeed starting to decay. A 172 shouldn’t be having great difficulty at 7,800’ (though check the air temperature - density altitude might have been much higher if it was hot), but if you try to take it anywhere close to its published service ceiling you will find that you have to reduce the climb rate to not much more than 100 to 200 fpm for the last few thousand feet.

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Ok thanks. Good advice

While leaning IS important, you need to realise that the C172 cannot maintain a 500fpm rate of climb at that altitude. You are losing engine performance and lift as the air gets thinner so you should NOT try to maintain a fixed rate of climb. It is normal to climb at the best rate of climb airspeed, which is around 74kts for the C172 at sea level, reducing to 72kts IAS at 8,000ft. This will give you probably around 700 - 800fpm at sea level (depending on temperature) but at 7,800 feet you would be lucky to see much more than 300fpm, maybe 400.

From the C172 POH:

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Note: your max rate of climb at varying altitudes also depends on your weight.

Thanks for the info brother

If you want a C172 that will hold performance all the way to 17,500, consider using the freeware Cessna 172 JT-A (Turbodiesel) from MrTommyMxr and DanielLOWG, available on Flightsim.to. It uses the Cessna 172 G1000 baseline 3D model, so that needs to be in your inventory (which it should be in all versions of the MSFS - Standard, Premium, etc).

The best part about TDs - single power lever, no messing about with mixture. :slight_smile: