Let’s see—we’ve got avgas in the tanks and air containing oxygen all around us. Somehow that air and avgas have to combine in a roughly 15 to 1 ratio—by weight—in the engine’s cylinders. Then they can do their suck, squeeze, bang and blow thing to make the prop go whirling around. Enter the humble carburetor, the device that for over 100 years has been combining a gas and a liquid to create the explosive mixture in aero engines that lets us do that cool pilot stuff we do.
Other than pulling the carb heat knob from “off” to “on,” we suspect that the last time you thought about your carburetor was when the engine stumbled a bit as you added power, or your shop asked if you wanted it overhauled when you sent your engine out for its overhaul.