Hello,

I have what is probably a goofy question.

Airplane in south central AK on a tie down with wing covers. When it's time to fly I preheat the engine with a red dragon, take wing covers off and store in car or airplane. Snow/Ice on covers melts. After flight, time to put covers on, they're wet. Water gets on the wings and freezes. Now the wings are icy for the next flight. Is there a way to avoid this?

I guess I could just leave the covers in a bag outside near the tie-down spot, maybe hide it under the car? Still, wadded up in a sack, snow/ice is going to get on the underside of the covers. If the covers have to be transported with the airplane in the heated cabin it doesn't solve that.

Thanks in advance.

Wing covers are usually used to keep frost off the wings. They don’t work well if you leave them on long term through snow/thaw/freeze cycles. If the covers are wet from an above freezing day, you need to take them home and dry them out well. Usually the problem isn’t ice on the wings from frozen covers, it’s trying to tear frozen covers off the wings. If you have lots of ice on them - take them home. Covers should be dry, just shake all the snow off and roll them up, should not get wet at all.

Thanks for the response. The airplane only flies about once every 2 weeks in the winter; living in an apartment I don't have a great place to dry them out. They're in my clothes dryer on low heat right now, probably not the best. Obviously I would like to hangar, but if I could even get one here they run about 3-4x the value of my airplane ($200k+), and $300/mo in "association fees".

This is my first winter up here so I'm learning as I go. I'm slowly starting to discover why people just store their planes all winter and don't fly.

Wing covers are a PITA no matter what the situation. As noted above, the key is to try to KEEP them dry, which, as you're finding out, isn't always possible. I really prefer the very light weight covers, as opposed to the heavier, coated nylon covers. Waterproof covers weigh more, they don't bundle up as tight, and the water proof function really isn't that valuable.

That said, most of my time using wing covers was in interior Alaska, where freeze/thaw cycles are less frequent than south central AK.

Probably best thing you can do is just try to slide them off smoothly, and shake them out to the extent you can. Putting them back on a little damp isn't a big thing, frankly.

Biggest thing in that part of the world, is if the wind comes up, get out there ASAP and get those wing covers OFF the plane. Those things will do a lot of damage in a big wind. Other option: buy mesh covers, and both problems are solved.

MTV

I know probably not practical in most cases, but how about a 20 foot enclosed trailer with a propane heater and hang the wing covers inside to dry?

Oh boy, been down this road so many times back when we had Winter in SE and no hangar. It’s a real pain in the ass, especially when you need to fly for something other than fun. We had the full on portable garage...windshield, tail, engine, prop...all covered. Piece of cake in cold snowy weather but a nightmare in the wet/freeze/rain conditions. Lots of years that way. Sometimes it was so bad that we would have to go hat - in - hand on bended - knee and ask a neighbor with a hangar for a quick defrost to get them off.

Solid, frozen wing covers are the worst. Get the mesh ones with the spoilers on them as Mike suggested. I think Kennon makes them? When they freeze on its way easier to get them off. We carried a can or two of that windshield de-icer stuff or a small pump sprayer with diluted isopropyl alcohol. Works amazingly well on what’s left, if there is much left. Usually it’s clear enough. When they go back on they may be wet but at least it’s not solid wet like the nylon covers.

I quit overnighting outside in those conditions. If I have to go to town overnight I ride with the air taxi. In fact I’m starting to wonder why I have an airplane at all. That doesn’t help you much though, Hahahaha.

Thanks for the responses. We have the alaska wing covers "vented wing cover" https://www.alaskawingcovers.com/WingCovers.html

It has a mesh strip about 8" back from the leading edge. We take them off in high wind, luckily Merrill seems to be somewhat well protected from the turnagain winds most of the time, but we take them off when winds gusting more than 25 knots or so are forecast. We also brush the snow off if there are more than a few inches of wet accumulation.

Hopefully it has finally dropped below freezing until march. It sounds like late fall/early spring are just going to be difficult to deal with.

You’re doing it! And it sucks.

I have the same problem for sure.

1) buy another set and rotate them out. Even in an apartment you can dry them out one at a time. Not sure if you have a small storage room but a wet wing cover dries pretty quickly hanging from a 6’ ladder. I do it in our lab all the time since we are hangarly challenged.

2) another idea is to put solids on first and then meshys on top. The meshys with the spoilers do a good job holding the solids down, even in strong winds, and one of the sets is almost always dry enough to use the second time while the other set is drying out. Hopefully that made sense.

If it was easy, everyone would do it!

Ewww, flashbacks! High school job in Anchorage I worked at a flight school, used to deal with those damn things every winter, in the dark and freezing cold. I would hang them on the fence, span wise, I didn’t bother rolling them up as that was just a waste of energy and frozen fingers. Sublimation from wind usually knocked off the frost, snow, and ice while hanging up until I had to put the airplanes to bed. Sew your N numbers big on them and nobody will steal them. I don’t think I ever cussed more in my life putting those on and off in the freezing cold wind, 20 high wing cessnas.