air conditioning- nice, required, or silly?

Anybody have any experience with air conditioning in their plane-Nice
to have? Silly accessory? Don't leave home without it? 80% Summer
flying in Northeast.


Thanks for your opinion.

Andy

As others have stated, you cannot use if for takeoff. So, you use it on
the ground and then turn it on again in the climb. 4 minutes into the
climb, you are usually into cooler air anyway and shut it off.

Google A/C and see the persistent problems with these units.

They are R-12 systems in most planes. If you think it is expensive to
get a car charged with R-12, wait till you see what it will cost to get
an A&P to do it - if you can find one. Likely you will have to talk an
auto tech into bringing his equipment out to the airport for the A&P to
watch him charge the system. Then, you get to pay 2 folks for one
operation. R-134? Many techs will not do a conversion because they can
screw up some systems irreparably. Even though many have converted
Pipers, the local auto tech has no experience and likely will not want
to "experiment" with a very expensive airplane.

The hoses are now 20-30+ years old. They leaked like crazy when new and
have not gotten any better with age. If an auto tech charges the plane,
they will likely give you the speech about how they are required to
investigate why the system needed a charge and fix it. Or, they may
refuse to charge it at all UNTIL the leak is found and fixed.

As others have said, they rob you of 70 odd pounds in the Pipers. For a
140 that is 10% of its useful load and precludes any thoughts of a third
person.

The alternator belts and pulleys are the biggest pain. After 1000 hours,
the pulleys wear due to the high tension required on the skinny
alternator belt. Once worn, you can throw belts in as little as 2 hours.
Ironically, the compressor belt usually never breaks. Which would you
choose to go South unpredictably?

We removed ours and got back 43 pounds. We left the drop door and
condenser in because of the hassle of removing it. The cost to "convert"
back to stock can be staggering and the parts are NOT easy to identify
and find.

Opinions vary, but in many Midwest/Northern parts of the country, it is
not worth the hassle.

Good Luck,
Mike