Baby, it's cold out there!

On 31 Jan 2007 15:31:45 -0800, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

Baby, it's COLD out there!

It's been pretty cold in the NE also. Last takeoff was with OAT around 0°F
and -25°C at altitude.

No strut seals to leak in the Mooney, but:

Very stiff elevator trim (well, in the Mooney it really trims the tail).
Got worse in flight.
Cured by re-lubing with cold weather grease. I don't know why that
wasn't done at annual time two months ago.

Very stiff Mixture Control -- that thawed out with flight. I did have the
cable lubed, but if there's water in there, that probably won't work for
long. We'll see.

I used to be able to see my breath in the cabin in these temps. But last
year I added an extra heat muff to the system; and the past few months
we've been tearing things apart and trying to seal up all the holes and
adding insulation. So we were comfortable; although there are still a few
small air leaks to be located and patched.

Oh -- and for the same RPM/MP settings, our TAS was about 7 knots faster;
our climb rate much more spiffy; and our indicated altitude was about 800'
higher than the true altitude (at 8500' indicated).


--ron