Has anyone used this kind of heat for cold starts? I hear so much about oil pan heaters and coils around the cylinders but I never hear about basic hot air. Is there some drawback that I'm not thinking of? Thanks,

Get it out, hook it up , start it up, monitor the process, stand around in the cold...
The Reiff Preheat System that I had installed on my Husky is great. Call and have it plugged in, arrive and unplug, go fly.
Steve

Yes... but, with the Rieff, I have to drive out to the airport, plug it in, drive home, wait, drive out again, unplug and fly away. Because it takes so long to actually heat up the oil. With a 1/2 hour drive each way, all I'll be doing is driving back and fourth. I've also heard that the Rieff system can take some time to heat up all the oil, let alone the whole engine. I've heard the Red Dragon can heat everything up in about 1/2 and hour (possibly less.) In that time, I can preflight and get a cup of coffee - with only one trip to the airport.

Also, I hear that you can put the Rieff type systems on thermostats or timers. But I also hear that it's the heal/cool cycle that causes condensation and corrosion.

I'm looking for something I can use once I arrive at the airport to fly. Not something I have to set up or plug in the day or night before.

Any ideas,

Alex

Alex, I use a Tanis system. Since I fly at least once a week, I just leave it plugged in. No fuss, no muss!

I used one a lot. I had my plane tied down outside, so no access to electricity. Drive up to plane, set it up (< 5 minutes), heat while sitting in heated car/truck drinking coffee (that I was going to regret later) 30 minutes. Put heater back in car (<2 minutes) and go. I'll get another one when I get another plane.

Red dragon will heat up the block to sufficient temp. NOT your oil. If I leave my pan heater on overnight my oil is 80 degrees when i start w/ cylinders ranging from 60-70 when i leave the blanket on. The thing you really want to do is heat the OIL up. It's nice to heat the block up and especially the carb as it makes for much easier starts. Often I use both forced hot air and the pad heater however I wouldn't just use the red dragon for half an hour. I on a cold day you won't even get the oil temp up to 40 w/ just the forced hot air. With hot block and cold oil you still have major wear going on at starts. With hot oil and cold block you have oil flowing as soon as the engine is turned on also.....it's not a bad idea to run the prop through a few times before start to prime the pump just make sure you don't have hot mags. Where I live winter is long and usually colder than the north pole so we get good at protecting our engines.



Mike

It sounds like the Red Dragon type can get me warmer sooner. Although, it sounds better to use both heat sources. Ideally, I would have the plane in a heated hangar - which would be situated outside my back door on my private airstrip. Yeah right. I've got to draw the line somewhere.

I don't deal with super cold temps. I just want to take advantage of still winter air when it's available. Usually that means cold temps. However, I probably wont go out if it's below 20F. It sounds like the Dragon can work for me. I can go out, set up, preflight wait, then go.

Anything is better than having to drain the oil while hot in a pot, rewarming over a stove and building a campfire under the engine in the morning.................

I've used Red Dragons and several other types of combustion heaters over the years.

If electricity is available, don't even think about it. There is a device that couples to a cell phone that will turn on the electricity to a device remotely, but a phone call. A couple hours before flight time, call the "by the minute" cell phone ($10 at Walmart), and it turns on the heater. Someone on this forum gave specs for such a setup earlier.

The Red Dragon works okay, but there are a couple of issues:

1) You have to monitor them pretty closely. That does NOT include doing a thorough pre-flight while its' running, in my opinion. It means you WATCH it. If they go up, they go enthusiastically, and you need to be quick about shutting it off. Not very likely, but only takes one...

2) Let's say the temp is 20 above. You put the Dragon on the engine for 20 minutes. Now, what you REALLY need to do is to cover the engine with an ENGINE COVER (read NOT a sleeping bag, or??) to seal it up and let that entire engine normalize in temperature. The idea is to heat for a while, then shut off the heater with the engine covered tightly, do your preflight THEN, and after another 20 minutes or so, the engine parts and oil should all be about the same temperature. Go fly. The key is NOT to do quick pre-heats with these things, but to heat, then allow the engine temperatures to normalize.

3) Propane makes a LOT of moisture. All that moisture is going to reside in your engine compartment. That's not a huge deal, but just be aware that things will be dripping after a preheat with a Dragon.

4) Finally, it's just a lot of stuff to lug around, or store.

They work fine, just take your time.

BUT, if I had electric service, I'd get a cell phone setup as previously described, and turn on the Tanis or REiff system remotely.

MTV

M

Mike:

Thanks for your sage advise. I've learned a lot from you even though we've never really communicated one to one.

I do have access to power so I will research the cell phone switch set up with a Reiff type system. It seems the best way but, I've never been able to find out anything about this cell phone activated switch thing. Any ideas on what it's called?

Alex

It looks good. I have power but no phone. Somehow I'll have to set it up with a cell phone. Any experience with that?

No experience but I started looking and found two links below. It's not that cold here (32 is rare) and I use an Aerotherm heater to force hot air around the engine and two 750 watt halogens to warm me and the hanger while I slowly preflight.

Something propane powered has intrigued me because it would allow winter flights to airports where hanger heat wasn't necessarily available. Flying my plane back from Moultrie, I got stuck in Nov 2006 in Los Cruces one morning because a snow storm came through and temperatures at 8 am were in the 20's

http://www.apogeekits.com/remote_contro ... _phone.htm

and what looks like the Rolls Royce to me

http://www.gsm-auto.com/

-rjb