I recently learned a lesson about winter flying that I have decided to share with the rest of the RV community and others who fly planes with wheel pants.
Some of you may remember the picture Tony Phillips took of our winter fly out to Lone Rock for lunch a couple of weeks ago. It was great fun to fly on such a beautiful clear cold day. We landed on a runway that was snow packed but didn?t seem to cause any problems. Later, when I returned home I noticed some ice around my wheel pants and decided to remove them for a closer look. What I found was about 5# of ice and snow packed solid around the tires and brakes on each wheel. It didn?t cause any problems when I landed but the runway at home was clear. If I had landed on another snow packed runway or the ice decided to break loose who knows what may have happened. It may have destroyed the wheel pant or could possibly have jammed the wheel and caused loss of control or even a flip.
The lesson I learned was to remove wheel pants for winter operations. It may slow you down but you probably won?t end up on your back.
Hope this helps. See attached pics.
Fly safe,
Ken Klima N904KJ
Some of you may remember the picture Tony Phillips took of our winter fly out to Lone Rock for lunch a couple of weeks ago. It was great fun to fly on such a beautiful clear cold day. We landed on a runway that was snow packed but didn?t seem to cause any problems. Later, when I returned home I noticed some ice around my wheel pants and decided to remove them for a closer look. What I found was about 5# of ice and snow packed solid around the tires and brakes on each wheel. It didn?t cause any problems when I landed but the runway at home was clear. If I had landed on another snow packed runway or the ice decided to break loose who knows what may have happened. It may have destroyed the wheel pant or could possibly have jammed the wheel and caused loss of control or even a flip.
The lesson I learned was to remove wheel pants for winter operations. It may slow you down but you probably won?t end up on your back.
Hope this helps. See attached pics.
Fly safe,
Ken Klima N904KJ