From: gauss@cco.caltech.edu (Edward J. Gauss)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation
Subject: Re: How about:  Too cold to fly?
Date: 2 Oct 1992 12:05:44 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: alumni.caltech.edu

In article <2510505@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM> bills@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Bill Standerfer) writes:
>
>I survived a measly -50F one morning in Maine...

Now that's a nice Springtime temperature.   There is usually a week or
so mid winter in Fairbanks where if we are real lucky and all of dogs
thrash about the high temperature will get up to that nice warm -50.
Some of my buddys and I went hunting for Caribou at -60 one day.  We
used weedburners to preheat the engines on our sno-goes.  But the big trick
was to find something to flame the propane tank of the weedburner to get
it warm enough.  The caribou didn't mind much.  They walked right through
our camp in the middle of the night.  Yea, we were in tents.

But at those temperatures you don't do much flying.  It gets too crowded
in the cockpit much below -30.  Besides you have to fly on the gages in
good VFR.  At -30 you have to wear your fat down parka while driving and
old Clyde Cessna just never put enough elbow room in his 185s for all that
bulk.  Unless you can hold your breath for the entire flight each time
you exhale you fog up the windshield and the ice builds up there faster
than you can scrape it off.  Use a credit card -- nearly every thing else
will scratch the plastic when you scrape off the frost.  But airplanes
really perform nicely.  All that nice dense air is like a supercharger on
your engine.  Curiously you have to watch cylinder head temperature very
carefully.  At 60% power settings by the book you may actually be exceeding
the allowed cruise power for your engine.  But if you have a nice warm
hanger to do your preflight, or a great big herman-nelson heater, most
little planes can be flown down to -30.  Most air taxi operations stop
when it gets much below that.  Only the ice fishermen attempt outtings
at colder temperatures, and of course the CAP who has to go out looking
when fishermen don't come home the next day.

I took the Beaver out one morning at -40 on a search.  We had to file
IFR to get out of Fairbanks.  The ice fog was so thick we could see only
a couple of hundred feet.  While I was reading back the numbers, Tower
informed me, "If it makes any difference, up here (about 60' above the 
runway) I can see Mt. McKinley!".  Tower had 150 miles visablity from
up there.  We broke out just a few seconds after lift off.  After we
cancelled IFR and began the checks for our cruise to the search area
I decided it prudent to call the tower,  "Ah, er, I have a problem here.
The gage says I have no oil presure.  Now we think it is simple that the
line to the gage is froze up, bit I don't know that for sure, so
could you kind of ignore that you are below landing minimums and give
me a clearance to come back?"  Tower didn't mind.  The only traffic
expected was a 737 from Seattle and it wasn't due for a couple of hours.

Landing in ice fog is kind of wierd.  You are in CAVU until you flare.
Then everything goes white.  Fortunately in something like the Beaver
you are touching down at about 40knots or less actual in all that thick
air and your roll is less than the hundred feet or so visiability.  The
biggest problem is finding your way back on the taxi way.

                              Ed Gauss
                              Fat Moose Flying Service, retired






Newsgroups: rec.aviation