RV3bpilot
Well Known Member
This morning I thought it was about 20 degrees so shoveled the snow out from in front of the hangar and pulled out the plane so I could go put some fuel in it for a planned flight to Wisconsin.
I hopped in and pushed the start button and the engine turned over slowly, my first thought was the battery needed charging. Then the engine started and ran for a short bit at a very low RPM's and quit. I re-started it and gave it a little gas to keep it running and after a couple of minutes I checked the outside air temperature, wow only 3 degrees, no wonder the engine did not want to turn over fast.
My next adventure was trying to take off the fuel caps. In warm weather I just flip the latch and push in to push the bottom down so the bottom rubber O-ring will fit through the hole easier. But at 3 degrees the rubber was hanging up on the sides of the neck of the filler hole. I had an awful time wiggling it off, I even had to take off my gloves and after the cap came out of the hole my fingers were so cold I had to place them under my jacket and under my arm pits to thaw them out enough so I could work on getting the other fuel cap loose. The second one was worse than on the other tank.
I pulled out the static ground cable and it would not stay out so I had to lay the very stiff fuel hose on it to keep it hooked to the aircraft.
By then my fingers were not working very well and it was time to try my luck at the card reader. I had to take off my gloves to get the card out of my wallet and I had to push all the info in with my gloves off. Now I had to re-warm my fingers again under my arm pits.
Fueling went well except the nozzle was so cold that it just about froze my fingers before I could get 15 gallons in. I had to warm up my fingers again before attempting to wrestle with the large tree limb size fuel hose to get it back in on the reel, at least it has a power retracting reel.
I think I'm going to move somewhere else where the weather does not get so darn cold.. I would not mind 30 degrees but when it gets down close to zero it is hard to work on anything outside......
I hopped in and pushed the start button and the engine turned over slowly, my first thought was the battery needed charging. Then the engine started and ran for a short bit at a very low RPM's and quit. I re-started it and gave it a little gas to keep it running and after a couple of minutes I checked the outside air temperature, wow only 3 degrees, no wonder the engine did not want to turn over fast.
My next adventure was trying to take off the fuel caps. In warm weather I just flip the latch and push in to push the bottom down so the bottom rubber O-ring will fit through the hole easier. But at 3 degrees the rubber was hanging up on the sides of the neck of the filler hole. I had an awful time wiggling it off, I even had to take off my gloves and after the cap came out of the hole my fingers were so cold I had to place them under my jacket and under my arm pits to thaw them out enough so I could work on getting the other fuel cap loose. The second one was worse than on the other tank.
I pulled out the static ground cable and it would not stay out so I had to lay the very stiff fuel hose on it to keep it hooked to the aircraft.
By then my fingers were not working very well and it was time to try my luck at the card reader. I had to take off my gloves to get the card out of my wallet and I had to push all the info in with my gloves off. Now I had to re-warm my fingers again under my arm pits.
Fueling went well except the nozzle was so cold that it just about froze my fingers before I could get 15 gallons in. I had to warm up my fingers again before attempting to wrestle with the large tree limb size fuel hose to get it back in on the reel, at least it has a power retracting reel.
I think I'm going to move somewhere else where the weather does not get so darn cold.. I would not mind 30 degrees but when it gets down close to zero it is hard to work on anything outside......
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