Oleg, SOW engine abuse by pilot?

Originally Posted by robtek

I can't stay quiet here.
I learned to stop the engine of a c152 or pa28 or any other small plane with setting the mixture to lean!!!!
The reason is: no combustible mixture makes it very shure that there is no backfiring or ignition when the prop of a hot engine is accidentily moved, even with ignition set to on.
To stop a airplane engine by switching the ignition (magnetos) off is dangerous and just plain WRONG!!!!
And of course a airplane engine is constructed to run without external power, be it generator or battery.
Those are only needed for auxilary systems!
The "Kommandogerät" of the FW190 could be set to manual override if i.e. the electric was lost.

I haven't made myself clear:

switch off procedure:

1) taxi to parking
2) ancillaries checklist (flaps, brakes etc..)
3) mixture to lean
3) throttle to idle/cutoff (if present)
4) engine stops detonating
5) magnetos off

now the engine is off

you can take the engine to idle and switch it off with the magnetos, which is not dangerous at all, it is actually considered safer because even if there is some mixture residue (you might have a faulty inlet valve for instance), there will be no spark from the plugs in case of accidental prop swinging.

I didn't know you could override the kommandgerat, where were the manual controls for the engine?

Guys, I have hundreds of hours on single engine propeller planes, and I don't mean to brag but I think I quite know what I'm doing when flying (and switching an engine off).

Blackdog, I know it sounds like that, but in some planes a dead generator really means the games are over in a split second.

Comparing the use of high compression engines with low ones (aeroclub boxer engines vs wartime radials or inline) is improper. We takeoff the Mustangs with never more than 75% throttle simply because there's plenty of power to do everything and above all you don't want to over stress cylinder banks that are 60+ years old, but in the warbirds circuit there are several pilots that firewall their engines, which often means catastrophic (and very costly to repair) damage. We had a case a couple of years ago of a mustang pilot who used to takeoff at full military power (or WEP) and who had a major failure fortunately once on the ground.
Cutting off engines by leaning the mixture is considered a bad habit by some, while others think it's perfectly fine. I think it's all down to the machine you're flying with and environmental factors.

and once again, an engine is not considered safely switched off until the magnetos are on, and that is the same for every plane.