Cold Weather Flying Tips
I love the change of seasons. The leaves turn, snow blankets the mountains. It gets cold. But cold is a relative term. We will define cold as any temperature down to freezing, 32 degrees F or 0 degrees C. We will define “real or REALLY cold” any air temperature BELOW freezing.
Always consider what you might have to do to get more airtime per flight and being prepared to fly in the cold will help this. Many times some of the most beautiful flying will be when it is cold.
The concept of just dressing warm to fly in an open cockpit airplane when it is cold works good most of the time. However, many people believe just dressing warm will work if it gets REALLY cold. Most of the time you need some sort of auxiliary heat to fly for and hour or more. I have tried it, it does not work.
If it is just below freezing (30 degrees F) with a 30 MPH wind chill (this is a slow PPC speed for example) this equates to -2 degrees F below zero wind chill. If it is a little faster and colder this can easily drop to –20 below zero wind chill. This is really, really cold. If your hands are out in the wind whey will not last.
Everyone I have seen dressing good with warm looking bar mitts and/or good gloves, can last maybe half an hour if it is really cold, than come back in agony with frozen hands.
The one I remember best was when it happened to me. The day started in Truckee California, sometimes the coldest place in the US. It was calm and nice, about 25 degrees F. It was a 30 minute flight to get back to my home airport but had to climb to 10,000 to get over a ridge and back to Carson City Nevada. I knew it would be cold but I did not expect what happened. While flying back 15 minutes into the flight, my hands got so cold I could not grab onto the bar. Flying it with the bar under my elbows seemed to work best and also squeezing the bar between my forearms provided enough control to safely land. What a lesson to learn! Something had to be done to fly when it was really cold.
The heat pads used by hunters to put in their gloves and boots are a great start. They are generally inexpensive and can be carried and used as required if you generally do not plan to consistently fly in the cold and really cold but could be used if you need them.
I soon discovered that the motorcycle shop had 12 volt electric gloves, socks, pants and jackets. The problem is solved. Hook this to your battery and you have a very efficient heating system for any 12 volt aircraft system. Think of the extra comfort and enjoyable time you can spend in the air. Great technology we can use from our motorcycle cousins. This will apply to all 12 volt aircraft systems, including enclosed aircraft with marginal heating systems.
You can easily run two pairs of gloves and one pair of socks off a common Rotax 2 cycle engine with a battery. If put some of those “hunter heat packs” near the students toes, and you can easily fly around for 2 hours in comfort dressed warmly. Heated gloves and socks running full blast provide plenty of heat when you also dressed warm. I added a simple voltage meter to the aircraft battery to help figure out if the system was charging or draining.
Each pair of gloves and socks are 22 watts - each totaling 66 watts for 3 sets. This is quite a bit of juice. A hand held radio is only 5 watts output. Producing heat takes a lot of electricity. My simple ROTAX 503 puts out about 175 watts at full power and significantly less at idle. Adding a jacket at 77 watts in addition overloads the electrical system and drains the battery at idle but can produce enough electricity at 5500 RPM cruise. If you want the extra heat, perhaps a vest at 44 watts will help you squeak by.
Also note that if you bring something along to push the radio buttons since this is near impossible with big gloves, you do not have to take off your gloves to change frequencies. A pencil eraser works great for this.
When it gets cold, turn your half hour flights of suffering cold into 2 hour flights where you are warm and cozy.
Pictures
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Paul and Loretta bundled up with full electric heating system in 20 degrees air temperature. |
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The complete electric heating system with chords run through the jacket and pants for the gloves and socks. The separate system of gloves and hunter hot packs on the left. |
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Paul looking back at Truckee, where his hands began to feel frozen. |
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A pencil attached to knee board is handy for change frequencies on the radio without taking off gloves. |
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Working the radio with the pencil eraser. |
