Cold Weather Flying

[Joe Dubner]

Earlier today I flew my O235 Long-EZ home to Independence, OR from a visit with Jim Price at Sunrise Skypark in southern ID (http://www.runwayfinder.com/?loc=ID40;7S5&view=vfr).  That's about 300 NM of inhospitable terrain (including 10,500' Mt. Jefferson in the Cascade Mountains) with hardly even a decent road for an emergency landing. It's still winter in Idaho and the little Lycoming likes the colder temperatures so I climbed to FL190 to buy myself some more gliding distance.  And while I was at it I wanted to see how my heated seat from http://warmseats.com/ would handle the cold (-6F at altitude) as I have no cabin heat.

It was a non-event.  The aircraft still wanted to climb and FL200 would have been easy although that's higher than I wanted to be with my current oxygen system.  I switched my seat fron high to low heat setting as high was still too hot.  The manifold pressure indicated 14 inches at WOT and with 2700 RPM I estimate 52% power.  My Garmin 196 GPS needed a large contrast adjustment as the LCD screen became dark in the cold.

GU canard, Hertzler propeller, about 30 gallons of fuel, solo, with darn little luggage.  And heated socks, although I didn't bother with them for this trip as I've found regular heavy wool socks and boots are OK for a couple of hours.

APRS track of my flight: http://tinyurl.com/yj662h2

[Mzwijacz]

Joe,

Been there done that have the t-shirt. I fly out of Tahoe, and at night in the winter at 12k for terrain the temps are -C. I don't have any heat as well. I would like to talk about your heated seats. What kind of amp draw ? I fly to Florence Or., frequently when weather allows; my elderly mother lives there. Are you going to Columbia this year ? My wk ph is :

five 3 zero - 5 four four - seven 7 three 3

Give me a call.
Michael Z.
Long Eze 97LZ

[The Jack]

Heated seats aren't a solution I had considered.  I even have an extra 12 connector in the plane that could put one of those seat warmers to good use!  Cheers to you on a smart solution.   

Joe, what model did you use from their catalog?  And are you having any (de)frosting issues? 

The cold really shortens our available flying time in Arkansas when winter comes around.

--Josh 

[Joe Dubner]

Joe, what model did you use from their catalog?  And are you having any (de)frosting issues? 

I believe the heated seats in the catalog http://www.cobraheat.com/Products.html are identical except for the wiring termination.  I wired mine to ship's power so I used the "WarmSeats Seat Heater (Waterproof)" model http://www.cobraheat.com/catalog/item/6724967/6606665.htm  The complete seat heater (two cushions) draws just over 2A in the "Hi" setting after I trimmed it to fit my upholstry.

There is enough of an air leak in the cockpit so frosting/fogging is not an issue in my aircraft.  :-(

--
Joe

[The Jack]

Thanks Joe.  I'm adding this to my project list for the summer.

--Josh

[dorr]

Joe,

I've not lived in the NW in winter since flying canards.  But the locals up there said you head West to the coast first to gain altitude and get over the weather to avoid a climb through icing - or perhaps you didn't fly in any weather at all?   Have you heard that before?

Beagle