Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. Bright sun. Not a cloud in the sky. The temperature hit 16 deg C (61 deg F). Terry and I flew to Trois-Rivičres, Quebc (CYRQ) to meet John, a coworker, for lunch. His aircraft is based in Ottawa (CYOW), and ours is in Smiths Falls (CYSH). He was cruising at 120 kt, and we were at 160. But, we arrived at Trois-Rivičres less than one minute apart. The airport restaurant was packed - we got the last table big enough for the five of us (Jim, the co-owner of the C172, and his wife also came along). The food was great.

The wind was really blowing at altitude - about 45 kt out of the west, so we cruised at 160 kt at 55% power at 9,000 ft on the way there, to let the wind do some of the work and save some fuel. On the way back, we went a lot lower, and pushed it up to 175 kt.

I was happy to note that #1 CHT is now in the middle of the pack, whereas it had been much lower than the others. Clearly the work I did to clean up the connection in the #1 CHT wire was what it needed. Now all four CHTs are within 30 deg F of each other. Not perfect, but close enough for now.

The fuel flow indication appears to be much more stable than it was before. It still moves once in a while, but the movements are much less frequent and of smaller amplitude than they were before. I’m looking forward to a flight where I record data, so I can see how much of this apparent improvement is real.

The work I did to seal drafts from the canopy seal seems to have made a big difference. We identified a couple of improvements that could be made to the air dam. Terry is going to make a new, improved version. I’ll post pictures once I have the final configuration.

The plan I had to run a SCAT tube to the rear seat to duct heat back there didn’t work out. I’ve got three large aluminum eyeball vents in the aircraft - two that provide fresh air, and the third that provides one of the two hot air supplies. I thought all those eyeball vents were identical, so I measured the easiest to reach one before ordering the SCAT tube - it had an outer diameter of 2 inches. But, when I tried to put the SCAT tube on the hot air eyeball, I discovered that this one was actually 1.75 inches in diameter. Drat. I’ll order a new piece of SCAT tube.