Backcountry Pilot

[qmdv offline]

Split from "Chicken Strip"
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I decide to start it and warm it up good. I do my standard procedure nothing. Must need more prime. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is 6488 MSL you don't need as much prime. So I pull the top plugs, run the engine through a few time to get rid of the excess gas. Finally off the ground at 1000, so much for the early start.

Rob

What was the air temp at the time. My guess is that it was pretty cold, below 40F or ws it below 30F. Did you pre heat. On cold days after pre heating my O470 starts right up.

Tim

[OregonMaule offline]

I decide to start it and warm it up good. I do my standard procedure nothing. Must need more prime. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is 6488 MSL you don't need as much prime. So I pull the top plugs, run the engine through a few time to get rid of the excess gas. Finally off the ground at 1000, so much for the early start.

Rob

What was the air temp at the time. My guess is that it was pretty cold, below 40F or ws it below 30F. Did you pre heat. On cold days after pre heating my O470 starts right up.

Tim

Hi Tim, it was pretty brisk, 25 F I knew I was had when gas was running out the exhaust pipes. I'm glad I had tools. All I had to pre heat with was a bic lighter. Maybe if I had chili for dinner I could have farted on it.

What do ya do on a trip when you stay at an airport with no FBO.
Sleep in, starting fluid?

Rob

[qmdv offline]

Hi Tim, it was pretty brisk, 25 F I knew I was had when gas was running out the exhaust pipes. I'm glad I had tools. All I had to pre heat with was a bic lighter. Maybe if I had chili for dinner I could have farted on it.

What do ya do on a trip when you stay at an airport with no FBO.
Sleep in, starting fluid?
Rob

You are doing harm to your engine by not pre heating. I have a tannis heater and I carry extention cords to plug in if I can. I have a real clumsy pre heater that is hooked to a propane tank and 12 volt off the battery. Pain in the but for sure.

Here are some pre heaters http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/ep/ ... aters.html

I have seen a pre heater that is more portable that uses a camp stove. I cannot find the link at this time. I am trying to come up a mod for my Jet Boil stove.

Tim

[qmdv offline]

Here is agood link. http://www.fepco.com/BF.chapter12.html

Tim

[OregonMaule offline]

Hi Tim, it was pretty brisk, 25 F I knew I was had when gas was running out the exhaust pipes. I'm glad I had tools. All I had to pre heat with was a bic lighter. Maybe if I had chili for dinner I could have farted on it.

What do ya do on a trip when you stay at an airport with no FBO.
Sleep in, starting fluid?
Rob

You are doing harm to your engine by not pre heating. I have a tannis heater and I carry extention cords to plug in if I can. I have a real clumsy pre heater that is hooked to a propane tank and 12 volt off the battery. Pain in the but for sure.

Here are some pre heaters http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/ep/ ... aters.html

I have seen a pre heater that is more portable that uses a camp stove. I cannot find the link at this time. I am trying to come up a mod for my Jet Boil stove.

Tim

I like the jet boil idea. Morning coffee while the 235 warms up. Might need a bigger bottle of gas.

[qmdv offline]

Was doing a search for msr and found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-UFG-6NqPE&NR=1

Tim

[m7flyer offline]

Tim,
Nice video there. There have been a couple threads about homemade heaters in the past few years and some of them resemble this one. I like how organized he is with the cases too.

How long would you recommend preheating with one of these units?

Dave

[qmdv offline]

How long would you recommend preheating with one of these units?

Dave

I am no expert on pre heating. I have a tannis hating system but no power in the hanger so I use a Red Devel to pre heat with.

Anything under 40 deg F is pre heat morning for me. I put an old sleaping bag over the cowl and plug the air intake. I sick the heater hose in a cowl flap then heat tell the cylinders are a little warm. At 32 deg and above I heat for 20 minuts. I heat longer when it is colder.

I remember at the JC BCP fly in on 07, Sunday morning we woke up with frost on the wings so it had to be well under 40 deg. About six steller pilots fired up and taxied from the east side to the west side of the strip so they could get sun on the wings and windscreen.

As soon as the frost was gone they fired up and headed out. Two cold starts for the price of one. Not good for the hardware.

Tim

[Zzz]

Hammer rigged up a good one earlier this year....

[denalipilot offline]

I fly with this: http://www.tacaviation.com/models.htm

MSR stoves are designed to be highly field-maintainable, and I've used them all over the place, including on Denali. Runs fine on 100LL, unleaded, white gas, kerosene, pretty much whatever you've got to work with.

-DP

[whee offline]

I've got this stove:



and I love it. I have never used anying but unleaded and 100LL in it the year I have had it adn I have used it alot. The pump is metal not plastic and mine came with a fuel bottle. Bought it so i could use it to preheat if I had to and i have a system like what Hammer made. It folds up so it is not as big as when you are using it. Chris has them in his store at shortfield.com for a good price.

[Sullyco offline]

Tanis, good blanket, Honda 1000 watt generator, the only way to go.. I could never walk away from a burning flame, no matter what the probability of a fire is.. Just my opinion. I never fly in the winter without the honda..

Matt

[mtv offline]

The little Northern Companion heater is a great little tool to carry along for unexpected pre-heats. I've got one of the first made, at an "evaluation" price.

I've also seen some homebuilt knockoffs of the design that work almost as well.

You should NEVER (like NEVER, EVER) leave ANY combustion heater unattended. I've seen airplanes burned down with Red Dragons, with catalytic heaters under the hood, and saw one Super Cub's cowling paint melted by a dumb ass with a Herman Nelson.

How long do you need to pre-heat? A lot longer than you probably think.

Remember, you are trying to pre-heat that big blob of cold oil that resides at the very core of your engine, and the big pieces of steeel that live in it. That takes a little while.

I like to see oil temp indicated when I start the engine. Then I know I've done well.

The engine manufacturers recommend pre-heat at temps colder than ~10 F in the case of Lycoming. That's too cold in my book. Anything below +30 is pre-heat weather for me.

MTV

[Kenny Chapman offline]

Gotta agree with MTV. If you have the means preheat below +30 and your engine will love you for it. If you are where you have electricity be careful not to leave it plugged in all the time. You will generate moisture inside the engine. I built an engine dehydrator for about 20 bucks that works really well. Beats the 400 dollars for the commercial ones.

[Skystrider offline]

Do any of you guys concern yourself with heating the inside of the airplane before starting?

I have a small electric heater, with a tip over switch, which I turn on anytime I plug in the Tannis heater. It sits back in the luggage compartment. It seems to me that it is much easier on the instruments and radio gear with the cockpit warmed up. Of course I don't mind getting into a warm cockpit either! But all kidding aside, I also find that I am much more alert and thorough when preparing to fly than when I am worried about getting warm and working with frozen fingers.

[mr scout offline]

Do any of you guys concern yourself with heating the inside of the airplane before starting?

I have a small electric heater, with a tip over switch, which I turn on anytime I plug in the Tannis heater. It sits back in the luggage compartment. It seems to me that it is much easier on the instruments and radio gear with the cockpit warmed up. Of course I don't mind getting into a warm cockpit either! But all kidding aside, I also find that I am much more alert and thorough when preparing to fly than when I am worried about getting warm and working with frozen fingers.

I have been looking for a small one that I could run with the Honda but it seems there all 1500 watts which is too much to run at the same time I am warming the engine with the generator.

I am almost to the point of just building a couple low watt heaters to go under the panel.

[mtv offline]

Scout,

What you need is a 2000 watt Honda generator, actually

I ran into the same problem. Get a bigger generator. If you are only heating just prior to flight, you need a pretty skookum heater for the interior to do much good. For that, you need some watts.

It is a GREAT idea to warm the interior some prior to launch, at least in very cold temps. This is a lot kinder on your instruments, in particular. If you're going to do that, put the heater under the instrument panel--that's where you really want the heat. I wouldn't bother if it's above 10 degrees or so, but this procedure also helps cut down on windows frosting up, so it's not a bad idea at any temp.

MTV

[spacer offline]

Makeshift... hmm. How about a bonfire under each engine on our DC3?


I think a generator is a great idea, especially if you're camping out of the airplane anyway. Start the genny and heat the plane whilst cooking breakfast. Make sure the generator will handle the peak load, which tends to be pretty high on some appliances on startup. Also, the order in which you start appliances needs to be managed if you're pretty close to capacity.

On the plane we're building, useful load isn't a big problem, so I think
a wing-tent and a genny would be a great Oshkosh setup. Never been to the fly-in, so I'm not sure what's allowed.

[denalipilot offline]

The Northern Companion lives in the plane, and gets a fair share of use in remote locations.

At my usual winter tiedown, I have grid power, so a Little Buddy electric heater overnight does a great job. One up under the cowl, and when loading and preflighting I'll move it up into the cabin, or sometimes use another Little Buddy inside the cabin for an hour or so if it's really cold. The original Little Buddys had a metal fan that was very durable. The newer fans are plastic, and deform just enough when hot to loose some effectiveness. So the new units don't have as long a life span as the older units, but still work well.

At my summer location, I keep a honda 1000 KW, a propane tank, and a forced-air heater, and a length of stovepipe. This is for shoulder seasons, and I happen to have a nice shed for storing all that crap in. If I tried to fly with it, I'd never need it, because I'd never stand a chance of getting off the ground anyway.

MTV is right as usual- plan a lot more time to preheat than you might expect. However you do it, you can dramatically improve the process by having a good engine cover, venting the side opposite from the heat source so the hot air circulates, and consider a prop cover so that you don't just loose all that heat as it radiates out the blades of your prop.

[denalipilot offline]

What I want to know is how many of you drain your hot oil at the end of the day and keep it warm on the woodstove overnight in a metal Blazo can

-DP