Cold weather flying

[terry.mortimore]

Hi gang, with a certain Texan recently complaining about a little cold weather while flying I just had to post a few pictures of some real cold weather flying in my neck of the woods.



It warmed up to -18 Celsius from a low of -27 C this morning.



This is a shot of Goulais Bay North of town that is part of Lake Superior. It's well on it's way to being frozen over. If this cold weather persists they believe that Lake Superior will freeze over which happens, but rarely. This is a mixed blessing, it takes a lot of cold weather for it to happen, but it reduces lake effect snow flurries when it does. Sets up some great flying when the high pressures in March start coming through.



Haviland Bay North of town, again part of eastern Lake Superior.



Three ships in Lake Superior waiting for the Ice Breaker to escort them down through the locks in Sault Ste Marie, they need to be through the locks before they close on January 15th.



Ice breaker working in the North Channel of Lake Huron escorting a Laker down bound.



Laker being escorted down bound in the North Channel.



Laker coming upbound in the North Channel of Lake Huron, this is at Sailors Encampment on St. Joe Island. The ships have to make a hard left coming up bound.


I love my Tanis engine heating system. I also installed Vetterman Exhaust with two muffler heat exchangers in preparation for this type of flying.

Cheers, Terry.

[DaleB]

-9C when I got to the airport today. That wasn't too bad, it's the warmest it's been here for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the power outlets in the hangar are INOP. Don't know when that happened, but that meant my engine heater was not on. It got warmer as I climbed out; actually got up to 0C at about 4500 MSL.

I need more Gorilla Tape on the oil cooler and radiator... or maybe some day the winterization kit I ordered from Van's will show up.

[Northernliving]

What kind of oil temps are you running?

[DaleB]

Originally Posted by Northernliving

What kind of oil temps are you running?

Me? About 180-ish in cruise, but only after I got the oil warmed up with a long climb. It stayed around 180 or so after that while in cruise flight. CHT never broke 165. And when you pull back the throttle for descent... it gets pretty chilly, pretty quickly. I have about 1.5" of the oil cooler covered, but I think another half inch plus some of the radiator would help. The "Bender baffle" is getting more appealing all the time.

[Driving '67]

Terry, those photos sure bring back memories. Went to Sault College in the early eighties for their Aviation program. Learning to fly in -20c wx was challenging! The snow streamers off Lake Superior could change the wx from CAVOK to 500 & 1 in a heartbeat. Fun doing circuits!

Cheers Jim

[Saber25]

Thanks Terry for the great pictures and explanations. Those sea fairing guys and gals have to be a tough lot!

Cheers, Hans

[terry.mortimore]

My CHT temps were between 260 and 270 during that flight. During a flight last weekend I let down quickly and the CHT dropped to 200 on final.

Oil temp was 130 yesterday, I will be blocking off part of the oil cooler before my next flight.

My cabin temps are are great, although the black plastic air vents are going to be replaced this week. My left knee will then be warm!

My struggle up here is keeping heavy equipment running, can?t imagine what kind of struggle it is to keep the ships unloading systems running this time of year. They have my respect.

Terry

[Northernliving]

Dale, I was really asking Terry as I didn't originally see that in his post with the terrific photos (looked again and it's there). However, what's a "Bender baffle" I have the van's style cooler shutter, but haven't found a warm enough day to install it! (my hanger isn't insulated or heated!).

Terry, 130 isn't too bad given the OAT. My last flight was 12/3/2017, and the OAT was around 20 and my oil temps were in the 150 range. Yeah, the black plastic air vents are junk! I need to replace mine. What are you going with?

Brian

[RV3bpilot]

I now limit my cold weather flying to 20 degrees F because of the canopy shrinks so much that it does not fit the fuselage well and cold air leaks in. Here is a short video of my engine temps at -6 F but I had each opening in front of the cowl about 2/3s blocked with only a small opening on each side to cool the engine and still could not get the oil above 150 F.
https://youtu.be/rRvkny6YNS0

[DaleB]

The Bender baffle is applicable only to the RV-12. Sorry guys, it's not for "real" airplanes.

I hear you about the hangar... mine is a corrugated metal, unheated T-hangar with a big vent on top and very little light. Not heated and faces more-or-less north, so no sunlight. It's not a good time to be doing work on the plane.