Baby it's cold outside

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Posted

Pics of Bob's KF IV.  It has been -30 but today the heat wave got us up to -18.  

 

Cold KF 1.jpg

Cold KF.jpg

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Posted

All I can say is that you guys are tougher than Chinese arithmetic.

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Posted

Is it possible to operate your plane in that temp?

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Posted

The planes do fine, it’s the people that suffer. Wouldn’t be so bad if there was more room for a good pair of boots. I have to angle both feet to the same side to fit my boots on the rudder pedals. I had to use a heater to get it to pull over fast enough to start at -20°, but it fired right up and ran good after half an hour on the heater. I have a little propane heater that’s something like 13,000 btu. Propane makes a bit of moisture when it burns. Frost forms on the metal bits at first. I let it run until it was warm enough to dry off the frost, and it started on the first pull. Pull starter on my 503, no electric start. The flight instructor, however, decided to call it off until we get out of the extreme cold. I didn’t complain. Checking on the plane today, the hoar frost was thick enough to almost fill in the chain link fence, in places. It was just beautiful.  

8E29ED9E-9076-4E67-842E-FED963577E24.jpeg

DCD1EBED-9B39-420F-B05E-C1964EE4B0A6.jpeg

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Posted

I'll correct myself, tough AND crazy!  I.ve only seen -20 a few times and flying wasn't on my mind. But I do understand that for you guys, its business as usual.

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Posted

Dang!

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Posted

Yes I have flown a lot in these temps and worse.  One trip to the lodge was at -38.  Ended up having to drape a tarp over the entire plane and ran 2 big space heaters in there to thaw it out after a week of sitting.  These days I find something else to do when it this cold, especially of I am flying an aircooled engine.  You have to plan your flights better and be very careful on descent to avoid shock cooling.

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Posted

All respect, when it gets below 60 I'm looking for a coat!  Going to be 84 here today, unusually warm even for us.  We also had a freeze in December, which is unusually cold.  Don't like the weather?  Wait a few minutes....

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Posted

wow it sure does look beautiful .. what is your density altitude with such cold weather? probably gets you an amazing take-off performance :) .. i always enjoy flying when it's around freezing temperature because the aircraft performs so well compared to a hot 100F summer day.. however. in temperatures like you have it i'd probably stay home and wait for it to warm up :) ... can you get your avid / fox heated to a level where the windshield does not freeze up from the inside when you breathe while flying ? ;)

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Posted

wow it sure does look beautiful .. what is your density altitude with such cold weather? probably gets you an amazing take-off performance :) .. i always enjoy flying when it's around freezing temperature because the aircraft performs so well compared to a hot 100F summer day.. however. in temperatures like you have it i'd probably stay home and wait for it to warm up :) ... can you get your avid / fox heated to a level where the windshield does not freeze up from the inside when you breathe while flying ? ;)

I can fly with no gloves on in my avid at these temps.  The heat muff works really well for me.  Current Density Altitude at this airport is -5082' and its currently -8 F there.  Yes, the planes perform very well.  So much so that flying them in the summer is a bit of a disappointment.

:BC:

 

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