Cold Weather Ops?

Looking for experiences, insights, and thoughts concerning cold weather ops. I live and mainly fly in the southern U.S where it’s seldom 32F at the surface I’m planning two 1.5 hour flights for Friday that will be be flown in clear and cold conditions. Temps are forecast to be -10C /14F @ 5K MSL. FYI:The RV-10 has ground oil and cylinder preheaters and is hangar kept. Curious what issues folks have come across.

Cold

Ken, you'll hardly notice the temps, except that it gets cold in the back due to the airflow around the baggage bulkhead. I flew my -10 through several Chicago winters and had zero issues. A butterfly valve on the oil cooler plenum is handy but not essential. Only other thing is make sure your tire pressures are up to snuff - easy to forget that one if you're coming from a warm place to a cold one...

boearl said:

Looking for experiences, insights, and thoughts concerning cold weather ops. I live and mainly fly in the southern U.S where it’s seldom 32F at the surface I’m planning two 1.5 hour flights for Friday that will be be flown in clear and cold conditions. Temps are forecast to be -10C /14F @ 5K MSL. FYI:The RV-10 has ground oil and cylinder preheaters and is hangar kept. Curious what issues folks have come across.

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It is usually much colder than that here in IL and I fly in it all the time. No issues.

At 20F, I note that my oil temps start getting down into the 135-140F range at altitude, so I'm kind of curtailing flying at those temps until I can get around to either installing shutters on my oil cooler or taping it up a little. If you're ok with your oil temps and do a good preheat (it takes me about 3 hours in the hangar on the Reiff TurboXP to get the cylinders from 20F to 75F), the biggest problems you'll face are how hard your conform foam seats are, and air intrusion around the canopy (-9A slider). I do have boots on my aileron pushrods and weatherstripping to seal the back of the canopy...and my rear luggage wall is insulated, so the cabin is toasty enough to fly without gloves. Once I address the oil cooler, should be fine to lower temps than I care to fly in.

Couple of observations...

• if you're going to be using your heater a lot, I think that a digital CO monitor is especially important
• if you're pre-heating outside, it will help to use cowl plugs and a sleeping bag thrown over the cowl, but parking it inside the night before is best

I cover the upper 4" of my oil cooler with aluminum tape in the winter. With the OAT at 20 degrees, I'll see 175 degrees oil temp.
I plug the two cabin air vents with 3/4" thick foam. A 2"x2" square jammed in from the outside does the trick.
Additionally, I bring a blanket to stuff between my outboard thigh and the sheet metal.

Any Thanks!

Dang. Many Thanks

Thanks again. All insights noted and will be used.