On Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:09:35 -0500, Roger wrote:

I've flown in a Stearman a couple of times (front pit) and I find the cockpit
uncomfortable. There's a TON of draft that I don't get in my (single-seat)
airplane. Might be gaps in the panels up front, might be airflow from the top
wing. One flight was on a ~45 degree day, and I shot some photos of the pilot
back over my shoulder. He looks absolutely miserable....

One of our locals has a Baby Great Lakes. It won awards at Sun n' Fun
some years back. He used to fly it year around. Snowmobile suit,
fleece lined leather helmet, and a set of goggles peaking out. Of
course he also wore gloves.

Tougher than I've ever been.

About fifteen years ago, an older gentleman came by as I was putting our club
Fly Baby back in the hangar after a flight on a cold day. He told that in his
younger days, he worked on an oil rig and what I needed was one of the insulated
suits like they had. I reassured him as well as I could.

But on my next airport visit, I found a bright-orange insulated suit stuffed
under my cockpit cover. The kind, apparently, that they use on oil rigs.

Sadly, I've never had a need to wear it. I grew up in North Dakota, riding
snowmobiles all day in -20F weather, and Seattle just doesn't come close. I
wear the ski mask under 40 degrees, and long johns when the temp drops below 25.
Those, with my heavy-duty B-3 flying jacket, a scarf, and a good pair of gloves,
is all I need for a typical 1-hour flight when it gets really cold.

But...being from North Dakota in such a temperate climate, pride enters into it,
as well. I *might* be cold, but I darn well ain't gonna admit it in public. If
a part of me freezes and just falls off, I'll claim leprosy.

One can have fun with this. There's a guy at my airport who recently moved to
the area with his small open-cockpit biplane. He's from California. I found
him one 45-degree day, sitting in his airplane with the engine running. Not
going flying, just warming it up. Looking miserable. So I just had to stand
there in the slipstream, with my jacket partially open, wearing my official FAA
work gloves (e.g., hands stuffed in pockets), chatting amiably as he shivered in
his full flying togs.

A couple of years back, my wife gave me a replica B-3 flying jacket. The B-3 is
the true "bomber" jacket...it was designed to protect bomber crewmen standing at
their guns in open windows at 25,000 feet. It's basically the whole outside of
a sheep, turned around so the wool is on the inside.

The first opportunity I had to fly with it was our EAA Chapter's traditional New
Year's Day fly-out brunch at a local airport's cafe. I whipped on my scarf,
climbed into the B-3, and slapped on my leather helmet. No face mask..the temps
hadn't dipped to the '30s.

Back home in ND when I was a kid, forty degrees was a balmy spring day. Here in
the Seattle area, it's parka weather.

I landed at the fly-out airport and started taxiing towards the cafe. I
realized it was *packed*. There were even people outside, waiting in line,
hunched into their thin jackets in the icy wind.

I did what ANY self-respecting Fly Baby jockey would do at a time like this:
Surreptitiously remove the gloves. Unzip the flying jacket partway. Slip the
goggles atop the forehead. And taxi right by that shivering mass, spinning the
tail around towards a parking spot and killing the engine.

I then stood up and unzipped the coat the rest of the way, fanning the flaps
ever so slightly, like it was a tropic afternoon.

The looks on their faces as I walked past to our Chapter's table.... :-)

Ron Wanttaja