Engine Heaters and Blankets

[W.J.Langholz]

For the guys up north.

There are cowl plug heaters, oil pan heaters, cylindar heaters, hoses to stick in the cowl heaters,??????? which ones work the best????? Where's a good place to look for engine blankets???

The snow balls are coming and would like to get ready please add your comments.

thanks Willie

[djbaker]

For Blankets try Bruces Or Kennon. For heaters try Tanis, Reiff or EZ Heat. Or just Google Aircraft covers or heaters. Everyone has their favorite. I keep the blanket on all the time { except when flying} after the temp reaches 30. Outdoors after flying it will keep the engine warm all day in freezing weather, Makes for an easy start to go home. With the blanket on in the unheated hangar the electric oil pan heater works very well. DO not leave an electric engine heater on when the plane will not be flown, it can form water inside the engine. If you are near your plane start the electric heater 3 or 4 hrs prior to use. If your not near the plane buy a Tellaswitch which is a remote that can be activated to start the heater or shut down from your cell or landline phone.

[HA]

Hi Willie- the winter discussions are starting early this year! I installed a Reiff preheater last winter and I really like it - it uses band heaters on hose clamps that go around the cylinder bases, and a heat pad (metal) that glues onto the oil pan. It works great and it isn't as expensive as a Tanis unit, which you have to piece together from a bunch of weird gasket-heaters etc. You can buy just a pan heater (Reiff's metal heater units are way tougher than the silicone pads) but those won't really catch up if it's really cold, like we apparently have a reputation for here in ND, so I'd advise the whole system with the cylinder heaters too. http://www.reiffpreheat.com

Although they used to be about the only complete system I've never liked the Tanis oil pan and case pads, they often burn out. And the little heaters that fit into CHT bosses (we don't have those on the O-300 anyway) etc are pretty fragile and usually break when you have to remove them for maintenance. We have many Tanis units on our Senecas, C340s and Navajos for instance and I've been a mechanic up here for 25 years so I have some experience.

For covers, I have a Kennon blanket but Tanis makes good ones too. Make sure you get one with the bungees that wrap around something (I have a nosewheel that helps but there are some that hook around the struts) to keep the thing in place outside in the wind where you really need it.

And of course use multi-grade oil, in my airplane I use Aeroshell 15W50 for the EP lube that's in it but we use Phillips 20W50 in all our piston work and flightschool airplanes with perfectly fine results.

Hopefully global warming will get going and you won't need any of this stuff, but there's my free advice in any case

Hans