I have found that depending on the weather, the heater (s) work quite well. I have two heaters (I have the dual exhuast and dual heaters) and a few leaks around the doors. It gets quite cold at slower speeds due to the air being allowed in the gaps. The passengers in the back seat get issued a blanket especially below 0*. The heaters loose most of their effectiveness below -15/-20. In cold weather, it is imperitive that the panel (cabin) gets a pre-heat to help the gyros with their longevity. It is tough to get ahead of the ice from your breath on the inside of the windshield too if you don't pre-heat the inside. That's down side. The up side is that the air is generally smoother, frequently clear to a fault and oh the power........!
Flying the winters is more work but extremely rewarding. Dress in layers and plan ahead. For the record, nobody gets in the plane that is not dressed for a potential walk out.
There are always ways to improve on the efficiency of your heater. Start on the easy ones like the door seals. You'll find a great variety of seal shapes and sizes at the major box stores. For not much $ you can make drastic improvements. Once the interior enviroment is buttoned up, the mechanicals can be fine tuned.
Make the plane as comfortable as possible and you will find you have more willing participants.

Silicone seal around the door catches, new closed cell foam around the doors. Tape up the right hand empty speaker hole if you have a skylite and seal the tops of the skylite side panels with insulation so air cannot come in from the wing roots. Place a strip of tape on topside of headliner zippers at closing end. Behind the 5th seat seal up the underfloor space, the sides and especially the gap between fabric and headliner. Seal the possible gaps under front floor where gear comes through sideskin.
Make sure the rear panel or seat back cannot move forward and is sealed all around.
The cabin interior is a low pressure area and sucks air where ever it can.
All this will make a big difference.
Maule sells tailpipe heaters also.
Have someone ride in the back and feel where the leaks are and feel for cold air under the panel.
Jeremy

I have a 170B with a pretty good heater. I put new seals on last year(the ones that attach to the door opening rather than the door) and that helped greatly. My mom has this addiction of quilting when ever she gets the chance. For my plane and my dads she made a quilted liner similar to a drape with an insulation between the layers that attaches to where the shoulder harnesses connect. This reduces the volume of air required to heat in the plane. I seldom have passengers in the back so it's not a bother. If one did though a strap of velcro would hold it iffin you rolled it up. I have no picture nor do I know how to post pics to posts. If you have questions about it just pm me. Stay warm.

Jeremy,

You just reminded me of one winter doing moose surveys in a real "loose goose" of a Super Cub. I put 140 hours on that thing, all over Northern AK that winter. Stock (read crappy) heater in that one, and you could launch a cat into the slipstream from anywhere in the cabin in almost any direction, without the cat touching the airplane, it seemed.

We cut off flying at -40, but did a lot of that work at -30 and colder. We'd crawl in, buckle up, and duct tape ourselves into the plane, covering every gap with a liberal dose of 100 mph tape.

It wasn't pretty, but it sorta worked.

I've never met an airplane that was really very tight, no matter the make. As Jeremy says, the cabin is a low pressure area, and all that cold air is going to be trying to crawl in there with you. Figure out how to seal up the gaps, then start tightening up the heater system to prevent loss there, and MOST airplanes will develop decent heat.

Husky heat systems really vary a LOT, though the cabins are pretty tight. In that case, the heat shroud they use on the muffler often doesn't fit very tight, and you lose most of the flow out the various gaps around the muffler.

MTV

We must've flown in those conditions just to prove we could do as well as "thrill'em, spill'em, (chill'em) no kill'em Gillam".
Jeremy

Go to www.aerostich.com and check out their line of electric clothing. It's simple, lightweight, and freakishly effective. Whether you go with a vest or a full jacket, you won't believe how much warmer you are. Wiring is as simple as plugging it into your cigar lighter.

Electric clothing is so effective that after a long motorcycle ride on a wet, cold day, I'll pull up to a restaurant (ok, a bar), and rather than get off the bike and go inside I'll just sit there in the parking lot because I don't want to unplug.

And compared to actually doing something to your airplane, it's dirt cheap.

ravi,

Can I get one of those cycle suits in that nice zebra stripe decor that Zane posted in his pic??? There is a guy in Fairbanks who rides his BMW motorcycle (with sidecar) all winter, and rides it down the AK highway in January each year, and back at the end of Feb. He wears those suits, so they must work.

Along similar lines, I put heated seats in a couple of Huskys in AK. Had a mechanic install a power cable alongside the seat, with a plug (and a breaker, of course), then removed the seat covers (they just unzip), glued down the seat heat pads, replaced the covers and off we went. Worked really well.

The seat heat pads can be found at a lot of aftermarket auto supply shops, etc.

This is a minor alteration, since you're just sticking something onto the seat cushions, which are not structure. Just get someone to do the wiring properly and a logbook entry to cover that.

MTV

http://www.gerbing.com/

These will run off motorcycle and snowmobile charging systems.

RB

Mike, you'll need this to complete the ensemble.



This and many more can be found at Fur Hat World. Where's the "shaking head" emoticon when you need it?

I have a Lyc. O-360 170-B. The airplane is quite tight, and I have Yukontools
(I'm his Dad) blanket behind the front seats. I'm still not getting the cabin as warm as it should be. The engine produces enough heat according to cht and egt. but I don’t think there is enough air flow. There is a 2” tube feeding a scat tube going from the left engine intake to the muff. I also rob heat from my cht box but the downside to this is you have either carb heat or cabin heat. I’m thinking of fabricating a 3” expander elbow to go on the 2” tube to catch more air. I’m a little worried I’ll block/disturb too much air though. It is something I could take off during our warmer months. I do have to tape over the oil cooler in winter [three weeks ago here] and even then I can’t get the oil temp to get up to 180 when the oat is 10 or below. I also put a couple pieces of tape over each engine air intake. MTV……..I know Mark tried to get more heat out of your bird. Did he have any luck? They got a heat robber from a 172 for me but they were too busy to install it when we were in Fairbanks this summer. Any ideas out there for an heating up an AVCON converted 170-B? It is a 75 model which has the most “modern” heating system.

Another subject. Are pilots pulling carb heat to richen when it is very cold? I know my EGT climbs right up there to peak when it is below 10 without any leaning. –10 and sea-level my 180 is probably putting out 200 at least. I usually run 60% power so I guess you can’t hurt the engine if you are LOP. Interesting subject.

Buck, Galena, AK

This is great!! to have so many different ideas on how to stay warm in the cabin.
I spoke with another BCP you all know and he said to swap the fresh air vent and heater vent hose to provide more umph behind the airflow. I'm not sure how but i will soon find out. He also mentioned that Maule sells a pilot side heat muff kit(talk to brian) for all us maule owners this might be nice.
Does anyone know if it would be safe on the electrical system to run any of these electric cloths. Sounds really warm though alittle expensive, but you do get a life time warrenty on the heating elements.

With all these ideas and many of them put into use we're all gonna be toasty warm!! and we can go flying when it's 0* outside.

I will certainly be preheating the cabin be for i go flying this winter, seems like a good idea for the entire airplane, never mind preheat engine below 40*.

I'm happy to report that on Thursday the 25th i will be doing my First owner assist annual from start to finish. This should help on my lack of expierce with all the inner workings of the M-7. I also mentioned using these ideas to make it a warmer airplane and the mechinic was very interested. Peter

Zane,

My Marten hat is much more stylish than that furbag..... .

Buck, Our efforts to extract more heat from my airplane sorta worked a little.

You contradicted yourself, by the way....In one sentence you said your engine runs warm, then you said it never gets up to 180 oil temps in winter. That is a big part of the problem, in my opinion.

The problem with the 170 (and Maules to some degree) is that they really need to have a cowl flap. There is a HUGE hole down there, creating a suction, to draw all that cold air in and through the engine cooling fins.

I hate putting tape out front. I'm always afraid of creating hot spots in the engine by causing turbulent flow over parts of the engine. I talked this over with Leroy Lopresti at one point and he agreed, as have a couple of Lycoming reps. They all agree that blocking off inlet intakes needs to be done intelligently (like a lot of the Lopresti mods) to create smooth air flow. They also agree that a cowl flap is the best way to deal with that, by limiting the flow on the back (suction) side. I know of a few 170's around FAI with a cowl flap, but I'd be surprised if you could get it field approved these days.

If I were to do it again, I'd consider putting the Power FLow exhaust on, which has a better, tighter heat shroud. I think you could tighten up the 170 shroud as well, and getting some ram air moving through there can't hurt either.

If you're willing to put duct tape across cowl openings, why would you worry about a snorkel sticking up blocking air flow? Just curious, I don't know what effect this might have, but it might work, and I don't know what it would do to air flow.

On my engine the #2 cylinder is the hottest, which is very counterintuitive, since its a forward cylinder.

I'm still working on it. I'm going pop riveting SS parts onto the heat muff on this thing soon.

MTV

Does anyone know if it would be safe on the electrical system to run any of these electric cloths.

I've been running two electric vests off the ancient generator in my 140 for a couple winters...no problems. The draw isn't that great, but the heat sure is.

Electric clothing? What will they think of next? Me I have Carhart bibs and coat. Thinselate boots and light gloves. Old School

Intersting idea on the air vent to the heater side. May have to look into that.

See ya, Bub

Of course the bomber crews in WWII wore electric clothing. I think they refined cold at flight levels over Northern Europe in winter.

I used to fly with a guy who was a P-38 pilot in WWII. They also wore heated suits, apparently. He said that at least one section of that suit would fail on every flight. Said getting shot down sometimes became an attractive concept, just to get warm.

The bomber interiors weren't heated, or pressurized, and the waist gun stations were open to the outside air, as were the bomb bays when they opened them.

Had to be ugly cold back aft.....

MTV

I believe the O-360 produces enough heat but as you say MTV it gets dumped out that big low pressure opening on the bottom. My CHT and EGT (which I know is not a measure of engine heat) both run plenty warm. I tape the engine inlets on the inboard sides very similar to the factory cold weather kit I had for a C-180 I owned. It also had a restrictor plate for the carb air inlet. Maybe I’ll try putting a little tape over the bottom air outlet. A duct tape cowl flap. At least if it came off it shouldn’t hurt anything.

Electric clothing? What will they think of next? Me I have Carhart bibs and coat. Thinselate boots and light gloves. Old School

I rode for ten years without electric clothing. When I finally tried it my overwhelming feeling was that I was the worlds biggest sucker for not buying it ten years earlier. I don't sing endless praise about too many things, but if you've ever been cold while operating a machine with an electrical system, you should be ashamed.

I should have posted this awhile ago but thats fine.

I did speak with Wup and his idea works really well. At annual a few months ago we switched the tubes, and did a very small bit of new tube cutting, for the fresh air vent and the heater on the pilots side of the engine bay. The rear heat now blasts out HOT under the left seat and in the back.

Cabin conditions are considerably warmer now esp. at or near 0*.

My wife and i flew from Durango Co to Lander WY for thanksgiving and were flying at times a 0*F, with the addition of insulating the interior near the skylight covering the speakers up and building a blanket wall to seal off the back, we were quite happy with the cabin temp. esp. with all that glass surrounding you.

i'll have to switch the tubes back in summer so i can use the fresh vent but i do suggest this easy mod to all M-pilots and any one else with similar set up. Peter

Just a quick winter weather note: Went up to Grand Rapids in Woodwing's Cruisemaster (O-470 260hp) the other day at -11F OAT and back again at -2F OAT.

There was moisture in the air and after parking by the hangar we looked at the breather tube - plugged solid with ice... Glad the thing had the breather tube whistle hole.