Baby, it's cold out there!

Mary and I went flying this morning, just a quick burger flight to
nearby Muscatine, Iowa, to warm up the oil and keep sharp. The
temperatures have been hovering around zero for the last several days,
so although the engine was nice and toasty (thanks to Tanis oil pan
and cylinder heaters) everything else was completely cold-soaked.

Mary's preflight inspection was thorough, fast, and in the hangar, out
of the wind. All the ice on our taxiway has sublimated away (it sure
hasn't melted!), so pulling Atlas out was much easier, although
everything was completely stiff in the cold. At those temperatures,
nothing moves easily.

Putting on the frozen-solid LightSpeeds was enough to wake me up!
They slowly thawed, up against my head, and softened to the point
where the ANR functioned again, as we taxied out to the active.

Departure was normal "high winter performance climb". Nothing like
cold, thick air to make Atlas into a virtual rocket ship, and Mary
climbed out at an impossibly steep angle, hanging on the prop. We
were at 3000 feet before we left the pattern.

The outside air temperature at 3500 feet was -20 F. Even with the
outstanding Piper heater on full, we didn't get the inside temperature
up to 60 until we were half-way to Muscatine. (It's only a 24 minute
flight...) The sky was a peculiar milky white, but all the reporting
stations were reporting "Clear below 12000 feet" for 100 miles in
every direction. You could see the weather was changing, however, and
snow was predicted to hit later on. (It has been snowing in spits and
spats, as I'm writing this.)

Coming in to land in KMUT, Mary crossed over midfield and entered a
left downwind for Rwy 24. With the wind 190 at 10, gusts to 13, it
was pushing her in a bit, but she expertly carved her way to a perfect
landing on 24.

As she allowed the nose to lower on to the runway, the glareshield
passed through the horizontal -- and kept going down! Apparently the
extreme cold had caused the nose strut seal to fail, and we were
rolling down the runway in an unusual nose-down attitude, the strut
fully collapsed. Nothing alarming, but it sure felt funny.

Plugging Atlas into the handy power cord that every FBO in the Upper
Midwest has deployed at this time of year, the excellent folks at
Carver Aero already had the courtesy van warming up before we even
walked in the door! We usually walk to the nearby "Good Earth"
restaurant, but there was no way were walking today! So, as long as
we had wheels, we drove into town and ate at the outstanding "Button
Factory" -- a terrific restaurant that is inside a fascinating old
button factory. (Muscatine, being right on the Mississippi River, was
once the "button capital of the world", thanks to an easy and ample
supply of clams and clamshells, from which buttons were originally
made.)

After a fantastic meal we shivered our way back to the airport (but
not before topping off the courtesy van). Now my turn to preflight,
the wind had really picked up. The temperatures had cracked the low
teens, now, but the wind still made it feel like a hundred below.

Taxiing out on our deflated nose strut felt funny, but we were soon
rocketing out over the Big River, making a broad circle over what (in
summer) is a national wildlife refuge, packed with birds. Now, it was
nothing but a stark wasteland of interlocking pieces of ice, jammed
together in bizarre and fantastic patterns. It's hard to believe
there is ever a time when making this flight is almost unbearably hot,
but it's true. In July, it would be like sitting in a sauna...

Touching down carefully in a gusty crosswind back in Iowa City, we
taxied slowly back to our hangar. Once tucked safely inside, I put
some down-force on the stabilator while Mary lifted on teh prop, and
we got the nose strut back up a few inches. My A&P mechanic says it
MIGHT be okay, once it warms up, and we add some nitrogen, but will
probably need a new seal. We'll just have to wait and see.

Baby, it's COLD out there!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"