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Warmer Ride This Winter ?

S

Squeak

Well Known Member
Beautiful morning to go fly but with temperature at 18 F the RV7A would never warm up. Had a rider checking for the cold air coming in and he said the canopy was sealed good. It seems most the cold air is coming from the lower back around the flap hole through the fuselage. Has anyone made or are making a rubber boot to install inside of fuselage around the flap rod like the one made for the ailerons linkage rod? Sure would be nice to have a warmer ride this winter.

Squeak
RV7A
Jasper,IN
 
I hear what you are saying, but if you haven't already tried this (if yours is a slider):

Toss a foam pipe insulation wrapper (the sorts to prevent copper pipes from busting - OD of about 1.5") into the gap by the slider rails (after you are already flying). I hadn't felt a leak there, but sure enough the vacuum in flight is enough to easily hold the insulation in place. My cockpit went from cold to t-shirt weather.
 
Hours of reading available

Do a search on this forum and you'll be busy one whole evening reading about how to winterize these planes.
 
Many have tried the aileron tube boots and so have I. I think they work, but that is not the only place cold air comes in. I put some dense foam in the gap in the fuselage wingroot area where the spar attaches. The area between the spar structural bars and the web leaves a pretty wide gap for air to come in. Once I sealed these two areas (one on each side), there was no more cold air coming in. It's made a big difference. Now if I could get some warm air to the back seat..... I'm nice and warm up front though....

Scott
RV-8FB
 
Thanks for the replies and I will try sealing up the gap in the fuselage wing root area where the spar attaches and the foam on the canopy.

Squeak
 
If you have air coming in between the back of the slider and the turtledeck, I found a way to fix that. I glued vinyl upholstery material to the top of the back part or the slider but did not blue the back 1/2-3/4". Air coming in gets between the slider and the vinyl and forces it down onto the turtledeck, making a tight seal. Very effective, takes little time and little money.

Bob Kelly
 
Baggage Bulkhead Bends

My tech counsellor recommended that I get some self-stick foam, window weather stripping and fill the triangular spaces created between the baggage bulkhead cover bends and the bulkhead itself. I'm not flying yet but he says it greatly helped the "back draft".
 
Another option is to get heated seats, it keeps your body nice and toasty and it is fairly inexpensive.

Mehrdad
RV7A - IO360M1B
 
I'm new at this. How do we search for winterize? Have a new SLSA in WI and not sure what todo.....trickle charge? Gas additive?

Any suggestions gratefully taken

Tim
 
I bought my heated seat elements from flyboys and Oregon Aero installed them for no extra charge. They are nice so far to help warm up and soften the cold seat but so far I've had to turn them off after 30 min because I'm too warm, On the other hand I installed them for the wife and the only time I've heard "I'm Hot!" is when she was pregnant.
I don't have aileron boots/flap boots (i did stuff some foam around the spar), but so far I'm impressed with how warm my cabin is. I've only got a couple hours on the plane but after an hour flight at 18 OAT (cloudy/OVC) my feet were getting hot and I could've lost a sweater. At 30 I was sweating in my coveralls with the heat off and an airvent on, I was perfect once I was down to pants and 1 hoodie.
I think air leaking past the canopy causes cold air to be sucked in from everywhere, fixing the leaking canopy (search for options on VAF) also fixes the need for more heat. I basically followed the advice of others on "weatherstripping a slider."
 
We have several styles of seat heaters. Guaranteed to make the wife happy.

As others have mentioned, they are easily installed. Most finished seats unzip for access. The heaters are usually installed right under the covering fabric or leather.

Seat heaters
 
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