Preheating
Moderators: GAHorn, Karl Towle, Bruce Fenstermacher
A little before sunrise this morning the ADS ATIS gave the temp at 3c here in North Texas. 78D was saying how much she appreciated having the warm air from the little electric heater blowing on her big ol C145 all night long, as the hangar door was opened. The 45 minute walk to work after landing at ADS was a little cool, glad that I brought the gloves. Any cooler though and I'll have to bring a jacket.
Joe
51 C170A
Grand Prairie, TX
51 C170A
Grand Prairie, TX
Looking pretty good here -31F, but I still need the ole preheat. So a lil after 03:00 I stumbled out of bed and started the dry sauna. Takes me about 30 mins at 150F to get warmed up evenly all over and properly lubricated. I took a 25 min trot on the treadmill to start my new years resolution to take weight off my plane. Only a 5 min walk to work, if I don't stop at the doughnut rack.
+20F -SN this morning. My daughters are involved in the cheerleading at the games. I work swing shift Fri-Sat, so miss the games. A year or two ago I got a call from Nome and a gal wanted to know what the WX and runway conditions were. She was setting up the travel for their teams to CDV; when I said we had showers she kinda groaned, I then said RAIN showers, she really perked up, knew she'd be on the plane with the teams.
It was 45 degrees inside my hangar today, so I didn't bother
to pre-heat. We launched for eastern Washington to pick up an
'81 C-180 and bring it back. It was 10 degrees at our destination. We
were only on the ground for 35-40 minutes, but my danged engine was
darned near cold to the touch when it came time to fire back up!
There were minimal provisions to pre-heat at our destination (don't ask
me if we properly pre-heated the airplane we went to go retrieve!).
All we had was a 250 watt heat lamp/bulb inside the cowling and
a blanket over the nose. We were running out of daylight and
ultimately had to either fire up and launch or push the thing back
into the hangar and try again on a warmer day (why Cessna
didn't put 6-cylinder primer systems on all the "large bore"
Continental powered airplanes is beyond me....).
Considering my highly limited experience with cold weather operations,
my hat is tipped to you folks (up north) who do it on a regular basis.
Cold weather flying is.... well.... DAMNED COLD (what a pain in the _ss....).
I always thought the cabin heat in my airplane worked fairly well.
Truth is, it doesn't work very well when it's 5-10 degrees outside (my
teefs are still chatterin'....).
to pre-heat. We launched for eastern Washington to pick up an
'81 C-180 and bring it back. It was 10 degrees at our destination. We
were only on the ground for 35-40 minutes, but my danged engine was
darned near cold to the touch when it came time to fire back up!
There were minimal provisions to pre-heat at our destination (don't ask
me if we properly pre-heated the airplane we went to go retrieve!).
All we had was a 250 watt heat lamp/bulb inside the cowling and
a blanket over the nose. We were running out of daylight and
ultimately had to either fire up and launch or push the thing back
into the hangar and try again on a warmer day (why Cessna
didn't put 6-cylinder primer systems on all the "large bore"
Continental powered airplanes is beyond me....).
Considering my highly limited experience with cold weather operations,
my hat is tipped to you folks (up north) who do it on a regular basis.
Cold weather flying is.... well.... DAMNED COLD (what a pain in the _ss....).
I always thought the cabin heat in my airplane worked fairly well.
Truth is, it doesn't work very well when it's 5-10 degrees outside (my
teefs are still chatterin'....).
Bela P. Havasreti
'54 C-180
'54 C-180
Bela,
The Cessna 180 is a unique airplane in Cessna's line. It requires some very specific cold weather preparation to operate well, but when set up, they work fine. They are hard to start cold, but I've seen one started, with NO preheat, at -30!!!! Wasn't mine, I wasn't involved, etc, etc, but I watched the guy do it. Requires oil dilution in his case, and a really bad death wish to me, but.....
To get an O-470 engine to run well in cold, you almost have to run some carb heat, variable to ALL the carb heat.
You also need to insulate the forward cross over tube for the induction system. Pipe insulation, tie wrapped on is the usual treatment. This is the tube that crosses from one side of the engine to the other just below the crank flange.
The induction runners are way too long for these things to be efficient with carburetion, which is why the problems.
Usually, though they start right up with prime, so it could be a primer line was blocked.
I just finished an annual, and the mechanics are experimenting with heat solutions. The 170 isn't a fun airplane to fly in really cold temps, but I'm hoping we made some headway.
I don't even want to think about what it was like for Noel Wien to fly around in an open cockpit airplane in cold temperatures around Fairbanks.
It would take a Swede, I guess.
Mike V
The Cessna 180 is a unique airplane in Cessna's line. It requires some very specific cold weather preparation to operate well, but when set up, they work fine. They are hard to start cold, but I've seen one started, with NO preheat, at -30!!!! Wasn't mine, I wasn't involved, etc, etc, but I watched the guy do it. Requires oil dilution in his case, and a really bad death wish to me, but.....
To get an O-470 engine to run well in cold, you almost have to run some carb heat, variable to ALL the carb heat.
You also need to insulate the forward cross over tube for the induction system. Pipe insulation, tie wrapped on is the usual treatment. This is the tube that crosses from one side of the engine to the other just below the crank flange.
The induction runners are way too long for these things to be efficient with carburetion, which is why the problems.
Usually, though they start right up with prime, so it could be a primer line was blocked.
I just finished an annual, and the mechanics are experimenting with heat solutions. The 170 isn't a fun airplane to fly in really cold temps, but I'm hoping we made some headway.
I don't even want to think about what it was like for Noel Wien to fly around in an open cockpit airplane in cold temperatures around Fairbanks.
It would take a Swede, I guess.
Mike V