Well, here I am, middle of December, 2 months and 1 day since I last flew. Why that long? Weather, the flu, mechanical problems, more unsuitable weather…
A number of things have changed. It’s a lot colder. About 50 degrees F colder (about 27 C colder). I have scheduled my lesson time 1 hour later than I was doing this summer, and even so, I still have to leave my home before dawn to arrive on time. There is the necessity of scraping ice and frost off the windows of my car, in the dark, prior to leaving. And it’s cold. Wait, I think I mentioned that.
Yeah, it’s cold: 12F/-11C. Brrr.
It’s definitely necessary to dress for the weather - at the very least there’s the pre-flight to get through, but also, in my experience, the heaters in small airplanes are never spectacular. I also remember how drafty the Citabria was in the summer time. Granted, some of that was from air vents that are, no doubt, blocked off this time of year but hey, I’ve been doing this awhile. Old airplanes leak air. They are not hermetically sealed objects. Then there are worries about maybe getting stuck somewhere you didn’t plan to be.
Here’s how this little pilot dressed for the weather on this particular day, feet to hair:
First, wool socks. Real wool socks. There is no substitute for real wool, except maybe Gortex, and I don’t own any Gortex socks. I’ve had frostbite. I don’t want it ever again. Wool socks, because they retain warmth even when your feet sweat or, worse yet, get wet. Not that anyone intends to get their feet wet in winter but how do you think I got that frostbite?
Sneakers/running shoes/whatever we’re calling them these days. OK, after the big deal about the socks, why those? Because my boots, although great for tromping around in deep snow and on ice, are too clunky to allow adept use of the rudder pedals. Since use of the rudder is vital to safety, sneakers it is. Judging by the footwear I see on other pilots I am not the only person with this issue. And another reason to wear wool socks, as it will be them doing most of the work of keeping my feet warm, not my shoes. The shoes, being leather, are somewhat resistant to wet, at least, and on this day I am unlikely to encounter unfrozen water in any case.
Long underwear and blue jeans over those. T-shirt, turtleneck, and sweatshirt. Coat, gloves, scarf, hat, and sunglasses. Because the sun reflecting off the snow is brutal.
Spare clothes: yes, I do carry spare clothes. A full set, including shoes and underwear. I carry TWO “spare” pairs of gloves, because they do occassionally get wet, particuarly when checking airplane fluids prior to departure. I carry at least one pair of spare glasses, too. And my boots, although clunkers, are coming with me. I am driving 70 miles each way in a Midwestern winter. Although the car was serviced just this week, there is always the possibility of either breakdown, accident, or some unforeseen delay. The car emergency kit contains an old down comforter and some chemical handwarmers, among other things which I hope I never really need to use. I can’t use the boots for flying, but I might need them on the road. I suppose it says something about how I evaluate the risks that I come equipped more for a breakdown on the road than in the air.
This, by the way, is not my Ultimate Cold Wardrobe - I have wool sweaters, too, and wool hat and scarves, and even an alpaca wool poncho that in extreme cold I’ll throw over my down coat - that’s good down to 40 below (which, if you didn’t know already, is the same temperature in either Fareinheit or Celcius. The fact I know this might tell you something about serious I am about cold weather activities).
Anyhow, I “gear up” and step outside. The sky is clear and purple, shading to cobalt blue near the east with a hint of salmon pink and some peach. Still air and very, very quiet, almost true silence. Full moon out this morning. Snow and ice crunchy underfoot from the last thaw and freeze cycle. I tromp over to the car feeling quite comfortable, in fact - all snug and comfortable in my clothes, feeling the cold on the tip of my nose and on my cheekbones. I start the car, letting it warm up with the heater and defroster going while I dump my flight bag and spare-clothes duffle and boots in the trunk, then get the cleaning tools out and scrape and brush the night’s accumulation of frost and snow off the windows. Keeping my footing wasn’t too bad - there was some ice underfoot but it was rough enough to provide some traction. I got in, got settled, and drove off into a slow-motion winter dawn, the only stop a pause to fill up the gas tank. Just in case.
A surprisingly high number of people are on the road with me this morning - early morning Christmas shoppers? They did seem clustered around the malls. Had to turn the heater down - I was dressed for outside, after all, not inside and almost started sweating before I dialed it down.
One interesting weather phenomena was observed along the way. While approaching the Des Plaines river I noticed what appeared to be either very low clouds or fog. Oh, no!… but as I got closer, then went over the bridge to cross the river, I saw that while this was, indeed, fog and mist it was a highly localized effect. The river, which was still unfrozen and flowing, was apparently warmer than the air above it. As a result, relatively warm (and trust me, it would have only been relative warmth, to bare human skin it would have still been perceived as cold) air rose off the river and met the colder air above it, which then lowered the temperature of the rising air enough that mist/fog formed. This formed towering walls of the stuff, about 200-300 feet above the river that showed a tendency to stay between the banks. It was like a giant mist fence running across the landscape. Back in ground school, while studying weather, I was told such effects and things like freezing fog were very rare and usually found only in the artic. I see them every winter around here, which makes me wonder if those groundschool materials were written by someone living in Flordia or Texas or the like. Anyhow, I only saw it over open waters that day - the DuPage river, which was frozen over where I crossed it, displayed no such thing.
I made good time out to Morris anyway, which was fortunate, as I had started a little later than I intended. I rolled into the parking lot 10 minutes ahead of lesson time.
I walked into the office trailer and the first thing I noticed was half the furniture was gone. Instead of everybody sitting around tables everyone was standing around empty floor space. Oh. And they were stuffing their faces with free donuts and coffee (provided on cold Saturday mornings). My instructor looks over at me, says hi, and then “We were just talking about you.”
“Oh?” The possibilities running through my mind range from Good to Bad to Funny Annecdote.
“We were trying to remember how long it had been since you were last here.”
“Two months.” Which I must have said with a long-suffering sigh, because sympathy was offered between the chuckles. I said I’d be ready in 10 minutes and hit the Little Pilot’s Room.
I came back into the main room, J handed me the clipboard, then casually mentioned being careful about walking out there and, oh yes, there was about two inches of snow in front of the hangar. I thought about that, and about how my back was feeling about all the snow shoveling I’d had to do this last week just to get in and out of my driveway, and all the boxes and stuff I’d had to move at work this week, and how much the airplane weighed… “You’ll help me with that?”
“Oh, sure - you wouldn’t be able to do it yourself. I’ll be there in 10 minutes or so.”
OK. I went out, dug my headset and a second pair of gloves out of my car, and one other item in bright paper and ribbons which I hid behind the paperwork clipboard while strolling out to the hangar. I then proceeded to pick my way along the ramp and through the hangars. I not only had to watch for moving machinery, as usual, but I also had to pay some attention to where I put my feet. There were slick spots. Oh, this was going to be interesting… but I needed to learn to handle a tailwheel on snow and ice at some point, right? Bush pilots do it all the time, right? Well, except for the ones who put their airplanes on skis in the winter…
Got to the hangar and went inside. Whoa, from blinding sunlight bouncing off snow to dark interior. There’s a light switch around here somewhere, off to the left, if I remember… >click< That’s better. And it’s a darn lucky thing I didn’t trip over that extension cord leading from the wall to under the engine cowling. It’s a built in heater for the engine, or at least the engine oil. The hangar isn’t heated, but the airplane is. I’ve never managed to get an airplane started under 20 degrees without some sort of pre-heating and it’s colder than that this morning. It’s also very hard on the engine. There are a variety of ways of getting the machine warm, and here we had the built in heater that only required a wall outlet.
Then it’s off to the usual preflight. Check the interior, check the paperwork, check the airplane, check the fuel, and so on. Checking the fuel with gloves on is a trick. The fuel sampling method works pretty well, except that it’s quite easy to get fuel on you. In summer, that’s annoying. In winter, you discover that evaporating/cooling gasoline will chill your hands even faster than getting them wet with water will. I’ve seen the effect not only produce colorful swearing, but also bring tears to the eyes of grown men. And gloves tend to absorb fuel, which then dries so that later, when your nose runs from the cold (mine invariably does) and you go to wipe it off so you don’t develop snot icicles you then get a whiff of avgas with its chemical aromas. Yuck. Which is why I carry multiple pairs of gloves. One set for preflighting, one set for actual flying so when I am attending to facial drips I don’t inadvertantly become victim to chemical self-assault.
I left a small box on J’s seat. Very annoying, as the bow came off and didn’t want to stick back on. I finally figured out it’s cold enough that the adhesive no longer wants to be sticky. Phooey. So I set the bow on top so it looked stuck on, what the heck, it’s the thought that counts, right?
I got the door opened but left the airplane plugged in - they cool down pretty quick otherwise. Snow and ice lumps plopped onto the ground as the door opened. Yes, indeed, there was about 2 inches of snow drifted up against the door, a private minature snowbank. I spotted J coming across the ramp. Looked like he was having as much fun as I was - not so long a stride today, and little itty bitty steps on the slick spots.
J walked into the hangar, asking a couple questions to be sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, double-checking the fuel, and so on. He was being single-minded about it, enough so he walked by the box in the back seat several times without noticing it. Well, I noticed it. He couldn’t see that? See it heck - despite the cold I could still smell the contents, even through the wrapping. What ever happened to situational awareness? J was over in the corner, picking up the towbar, looking at the snow, looking at the towbar, then setting it down. It wasn’t going to be much help today. He finished his puttering around. asked if I was ready, then we each took a strut and on a count of three started pushing.
One of the things about airplanes on the ground is that they do roll pretty well. We just needed to get enough speed to give us the momentum to punch through that little ridge of snow. Roll, roll, ~crunch~ r-o-l-l… Important not to stop - if you stop you are stuck and that will be a problem, perhaps one requiring powered tugs or something. Good luck getting anything like that quickly on a cold Saturday morning - folks were forming up posses to look for the absent-without-leave fuel truck guy at all the warm air/hot coffee locations, forget any other services. We got through the snowy hump and then we were out into the slick alley between hangars where the footing got treacherous. Not that it was a continous ice sheet - there were large patches of bare pavement and snow-with-traction, enough to get your walking confidence up just in time to put your foot down on ice. Whooo-eee! Don’t get cocky.
I said something about my concern regarding tailwheels, my lack of experience with said landing gear in winter, and airplanes on slick surfaces in general. J reassured me that he’d show me how it was done, it wasn’t too different than what I’d been doing, and not to worry, he didn’t think I’d have a problem.
Then it was everybody inside. I got in first and was getting settled, strapped in, and switched to my flying gloves (the fingers only go partway, leaving my fingertips bare which helps with manipulating switches while still keeping my hands warm), and so on. Then J got in, or rather started to get in.
“What’s this? - Oh, you didn’t have to do that…”
“Merry Christmas.”
Appreciative thank you noises were followed by the usual sounds and shakings of J getting in the back. Got the master switched on, the magnetos, mix in, crack the throttle – “J, how many primes today?”
“Give it five.”
So I did, then hit the starter. The prop went around one and half turns and then backed up about 1/8.
Huh. “That’s not right.”
“No, it’s not.”
(We both have a talent for stating the obvious)
What most likely happened was that the battery was feeling the effects of the cold, had enough juice to get the prop around that time and a half, but not enough to get past the next compression cycle. When the battery stopped pushing, it was the compressed air in one of the cylinders pushing back that gave us that 1/8 of a circle reverse. It doesn’t do that in summer because in summer enough turning to get just one cylinder through a compression-and-spark cycle is usually sufficient to start the engine, maybe two. As it gets colder the fuel gets less flammable, vaporizes more reluctantly, and the starter may need to crank much more than in warmer weather before the engine “catches” and starts running under its own power. With airplanes - as opposed to, say, your car - there is the additional complication that the batteries are small and the starter is expected to rotate a 35-40 lb/16-18 kg piece of steel.
“Hit the starter again.” came the Voice From Behind Me.
We got half turn out of that one. I started doing the mental checklist thing, in the slightly frantic mental voice master, mags, mix, prime, throttle - did I just come out here for noth-?SHUT UP! - master, mags, mix…
“I suppose we get out and have a look?” I said, starting to unbuckle.
“You stay put, I’ll get out.”
“OK.” I looked up at the electrical switches. “How about I turn this stuff off if you’re going to be around the prop?”
“Good idea.”
I reached up and flipped off the switches. J got out. I checked the switches. He asked me if they’re off. I looked again, yep, off. He asked for some more prime, which I supplied. He grabbed the prop and pulled it around. The sound effects were different than normal. Louder and… well, sort of a clankity-grinding thing going on.
"J, does that thing have any oil on it?
“It’s been awhile since it was flown, and with the cold…” Oh, yeah, in this weather the oil wants to turn to jelly. What was near the engine heater was warm enough, but out where the prop turns it was stiff. J pulled the prop around a couple more times, each time getting easier. He stepped back and looked down, shuffling his feet a little. Oh, I think I know where this is going… he’s looking for good footing…
“Get on the brakes.”
“Brakes on.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hard as I can.”
“Give it some prime.” he said. So I did. “Master on.” >click< “Mags on.” >click, click< I had my hand on the throttle and mix, watching J as he checked his footing one more time. J put one hand on a prop blade, pulled down and stepped back at the same time. The prop went rrrrrrRRRRRRR! just like it was supposed to do. J took a couple more steps away from it and circled around to get back into the airplane.
Well, that’s more like it.
At that point we needed to let the engine warm up anyway (and sure enough, the ammeter said the battery was busy recharging), so we both settled in and start checking the gauges and stuff, then the radios and intercom. I could hear me fine, and J fine, but J couldn’t hear me. This resulted in considerable switch flipping, unplugging and replugging stuff, and even an exchange of headsets. I suspected mine might be a problem, being a relatively inexpensive unit and showing some signs of wear, but it turned out to be J’s headset. I offered to shout for the next hour, but he declined the offer and after the smallest of whines (“That headset has always worked really well…”) J says to shut down the airplane to save fuel (and my dollars), got out, and picked his way across the ramp in search of another headset.
So there I sit, on a typical Midwestern winter day. I noticed that the airplane windows are starting to fog and frost. Grumble. The only thing to do is open the door and equalize inside and outside temperatures. Now I am sitting on a snow and ice covered landscape inside an airplane with zero insulation with the door open. Am I uncomfortable?
No - actually I’m quite comfy. God bless my warm wooly socks and long underwear. There’s no reason to be cold doing this, you just have to dress appropriately. I spent the time leaning back in my seat while mentally reviewing how to fly the Citrabria. J came back in due course and climbed in again. As soon he got settled I started the airplane up again - one push on the starter and the prop swung around immediately. They work sooooo much better when warm, really they do… and a little warm oil over everything helps, too. And some charge in the battery.
