Cold Weather Flying

"David Megginson" wrote ..
"Nils Rostedt" writes:

Exactly. And when jumping into the plane after this workout
exercise, the body sweat promptly converts to ice on the windows ;(.

Try leaving the storm window open at first, until the defroster is
pumping out enough heat. That trick works to keep a car from frosting
or fogging up as well (just open the windows a bit).

Right, that's standard practice here in winter. The problem is, that the
defroster has very poor effect during the warm-up and slow taxi phase.
Sufficient warm air only starts to flow during the take-off run when full
power is applied.

At least this is the case in the two-seaters I've flown. Maybe the bigger
tin cans do better. Anyway I've found it's much more comfortable (and safe)
to go inside, or to my car, and quickly switch into a dry shirt before
boarding the cold airplane. Less frost on the canopy, and a much warmer
feeling until the plane's heater finally kicks in. Hey, every bushpilot has
a spare shirt anyway ;-)

/ Nils
Helsinki, Finland