Webb

Webb

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As sweat poured from every square inch the other day, I said to myself....Self, wouldn't it be nice to have some AC in here....

Looked it up on line and thought "anybody done anything like this?"

adkins20pac24vn7.jpg


Here's an engineering ideal, design a built-in cooler with a drain line in it with a small heat exchanger,and fan. Heat exchanger could be aluminum tubing and the fan pumps air through the tubing. Plastic and Foam are light weight. You only really need it on the ground till you get up to altitutude. Lid would need to be water tight but have a vent line so it would drain. As ice melts off, you loose the weight because it drains out. The forward bagage compartment in an 8 would be perfect for 10 pounds of ice (I think??). Where would you put it in a 7? After you get up, you turn off the fan, still have 5 pounds of ice. When you are getting ready to land and it's starts warming up, you flip the fan back on and have enough cooling on the ground to the ramp. Also simple, less to go wrong, and way cheaper than a system in a 10.

When you get ready to fly, go buy a 99 cent bag of ice and just dump it on. Fly on and when your done, all you have to remember is turn the fan off.

Am I crazy? I'm actually thinking about where I could fit one in a 7 and easily have access.
 
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Webb said:
Am I crazy? I'm actually thinking about where I could fit one in a 7 and easily have access.
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This may sound dumb or like I'm trying to be a smart ***, (I'm not), but how about the baggage compartment??

That would be the ideal location for the one pictured. Pull it out when you dont need it and it's right behind you blowing forward when you do. Seems simpler to me than in the front baggage of an -8 with ductwork.

JMHO

EDIT: Now I re-read your post and saw that you want it built in. DUH!! Oh well, I still think the baggage area is about the only option in a -7. In that case, you should try to duplicate the one in the picture so it will be removeable. Bet you can do it for less than the $500.00 that one costs! :)
 
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I'm thinking "Hidden"

RVAddict said:
This may sound dumb or like I'm trying to be a smart ***, (I'm not), but how about the baggage compartment??

That would be the ideal location for the one pictured. Pull it out when you dont need it and it's right behind you blowing forward when you do. Seems simpler to me than in the front baggage of an -8 with ductwork.

JMHO
Click to expand...

No offense taken. This is just an ideal. Also, the little gem you are looking at is about $500 and it's a small one. Also, I wasn't really interested in a big block taking up baggage room.

I'm thinking on the hidden side. Lift the lid, pour the ice in, close the lid and it disappears. I also was interested in seeing the water drain out as the ice melts so you lose weight as you go. The pictured unit holds the water until you land.

One possible place could be a wedge shapped unit behind the seat back. Tool box on one side and on the other a built in light weight self draining AC unit that drains out.

Ain't insomnia wonderful.
 
Maybe the whole rear fualeage?

And you think 10 lbs of ice will give enough "cool air" to keep you cool for, lets say 15 min. of preflight, taxi and TO and another 10 min. for landing and taxi? At what outside/inside temp.? If it can do that, it will have to be frozen at - 200°C or you will probably hardly notice the temperature difference.

Maybe you can carry a couple of hundred lbs in the rear fuselage (put a heavy prop on for balance!)

I bet there will be somebody out there that knows everyting about Joules/Watts/Btu to let you know how much ice you will have to carry to get some benefit from it.

It would be nice though! Oh, BTW, there are some threads regarding this same toppic, they died out silently.

Regards, Tonny.
 
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AOPA forums

Go over to Aopa.org and their forums. Do a search on the system. There is a lot of info and somebody has plans for a do it yourself system.
 
Look up the history section of Aviation Consumer. They did a fairly comprehensive test of all the models similar to what you show...their conclusions were that they didn't really affect the temperatures in the cabins of the aircraft they tested...
 
I'd go with a water circulating vest/jacket/or seat covers. The heat absorption of 5-10lbs of ice would go a lot farther through direct conduction than circulating air in a cabin that sees many cubic feet of air pass through a minute.

I wouldn't dump the water overboard right away as the melted water at 33degrees has a lot of heat absorption left in it and can be more efficient than the solid ice due to surface contact depending on the transfer method.

DR, can you link to the vest you mentioned, I havn'e seen any?

[Done! http://www.jenkinscomfort.com/ dr]

It's getting ugly in So IL, gonna be 95 and 100% humidity real soon through sept.
 
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I surrender

Bob Brown said:
Look up the history section of Aviation Consumer. They did a fairly comprehensive test of all the models similar to what you show...their conclusions were that they didn't really affect the temperatures in the cabins of the aircraft they tested...
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I knew that - just seeing if you guys are on your toes. Yeah right

Sounds like I hit a been there, done that. Please excuse the faux pas. It was one of those insomniac moments at 5am in the morning and I must have been dreaming.

I was just thinking about knocking the temp down enough to keep from needing a shower after 5 minutes in the cockpit.

The ideal came when I was talking to my father who was born in 1921, when traveling across USA as a young man, my grandfather used to hang a piece of ice in a mesh net in the opening of a partially opened car window to help cool the car down. Most of the folks here probably were not traveling in cars back then.

Hey, I've got an idea now. I'll hang a big chunk in a mesh net across the opening of my slider and the big fan can blow air over it to cool it off. Hmm...I might have to do rolls every few minutes to drain out the cockpit.

Thanks guys, you just saved me from going down the "wish I hadn't path".

In all fairness, bear with me:

Tony - I'm only talking about 10-15 front end minutes and turn off the cooler fan and save the remaining ice for when you land. Once you are at altitude, you won't need. I'm only talking about a short period of time.

Doug - Could that cooling jacket be the model for a seat cover? It might be the most efficient method of keeping your cool. However, if married, you might need a pair unless you want to pretend you're in a RV3.

Grant - Valid point on the water - put a valve that lets you drain when on the ground (or over your friends bar-b-q).

Here's the funny part - I blame everyone on this site. There are so many creative individuals that make you look inward and start thinking of the little things that make your plane just a notch above in some places. This thread is parallels one of those cold frosty times when the guy next to you says..."hey guys, what if......." Vunerable, yet makes you wonder....is it doable.
 
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Webb said:
As sweat poured from every square inch the other day, I said to myself....Self, wouldn't it be nice to have some AC in here....

Looked it up on line and thought "anybody done anything like this?"...Am I crazy? I'm actually thinking about where I could fit one in a 7 and easily have access.
Click to expand...

I took a little different approach... I moved to North Idaho. No more sweat! :D

Of course I now have different problems. My oil temp is too low. My CHTs are pretty low. And I know, in about 5 months, I won't have near enough cabin heat.

Oh well. Solve one problem and several others pop up. I don't care, I love it here.

Good luck solving your sweat problem.

Karl

Now in Sandpoint, ID. :)
 
Not effective

My neighbor had one of those Ice cooler deals with the fan in his Lancair. It didn't work in the extreme AZ heat. Maybe in cooler climes it will work.

My solution is climb. I just flew from Yuma AZ to Phx with a ground temp of over 100. At 5500 it was 81 and very comfortable. When I return in the peak of the day (111 today) I'll jump up to 65 or 8500. The Bell 407 I fly in my work has a great air conditioner. We also pre-cool it with a ground based air conditioner. We need that since we wear BLACK flight suits and helmets:eek:
 
You can just put an auto engine in and get off the shelf auto AC and it works whenever you want! It maybe hot outside but it is cool in my plane!
 
Soap is cheaper

fun thread - I think moral of this story is fly early, fly high, fly into the shower with soap.
 
AC in a two seater.

Has anybody put a vapor cycle AC in a two seat RV. There are some pretty small compressors and evaporators being made. I would make a guess of 15-20 pounds with an engine driven compressor. The hardest part would be the location of the condenser.
 
Where would you put an engine driven compressor in an RV? You would have to make a bubble in the cowling for it. Thus you would fly slower and be in the heat longer. The simplest solution would not to fly when it is hotter than you like.
 
RDQ

Now this may be a REAL dumb question....so I'll pull the trigger and shoot myself in foot now...

"Would this not be analogous to a flying swamp cooler? And if so would this not play havoc with the avionics?"
 
Norman CYYJ said:
Where would you put an engine driven compressor in an RV? You would have to make a bubble in the cowling for it. Thus you would fly slower and be in the heat longer. The simplest solution would not to fly when it is hotter than you like.
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Yeah this advice is from somebody who lives in B.C.! I guess you don't fly down in the south very often. I took transition training with Alex in March in Texas and he put his AC on in the plane. I have been in Florida in January at 8,000' I was baking.
 
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AMURRAY said:
Has anybody put a vapor cycle AC in a two seat RV. There are some pretty small compressors and evaporators being made. I would make a guess of 15-20 pounds with an engine driven compressor. The hardest part would be the location of the condenser.
Click to expand...

I would imagine it could be done with some modifications. My AC unit comes from a company that makes them for custom cars. I wasn't building a plane without AC. I wanted to fly comfortably year round not just Oct to April.
 
Yeah, I know what heat is all about. Middle of July in the Mojave desert with my RV, and all across the south in the summer. Even too hot at 10,000 ft. Rudder peddles so hot that I had to put my shoes on to land. Never gets to hot here though to fly. AC would be nice but where would you mount the compressor on the engine. The condenser could go anywhere even in the wing.
 
Another alternative....

might be to put a mister in your NACA vents. Evaporating water sucks up a lot of heat, so by adding some water to vaporize in the vents, one should end up with cooler air (a variation on the swamp cooler). Could hook it up to a small pressure pump, or even manually. Downside is adding humidity - which is fine here in Reno, but may be different in more humid climes. I have seen these types of things built into backpacks where one mists your face/neck and gets significant cooling by the evaporation.

cheers,
greg
 
A mister might cause you to go IFR in the cockpit. I opened a bottle of water once on a hot dry day up at 13000ft and a small cloud formed in the cockpit for a couple of seconds about the size of a melon.
 
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