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First (and very cold) Solo: Winter Questions

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Sasquatch

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So not the very first, but first time I flew away from the airport on my own.:D Cold day, just above zero, had flown with my instructor when it was 5 or so. With the pre-heat plugged in (I cycle it on and off every half hour for a few hours), the oil gauge was reading about 50 and cylinders weren't really cold to the touch and I had no trouble hand propping it. I made up a hefty quick release tie down similar the Pilot Buddy, Aircraft spruce sells, but with about 3x the breaking strength, which works great.

After starting, I let it warm up for a good while, until it was creeping to about 110 degrees, by the time I finished taxiing and run up it was up to about 125-130. The most I got out of it was about 139, seems to run 130-140 over ambient. I had the oval air intake taped over and the thin insulating covers on the oil pan and intakes. It definitely loved the carb heat and hated it if I reduced power. Once throttled back to about 1800 to practice some slow flight and it took a bit to come back up to full speed.:eek: That's the last time I did that! Decided probably not a good day to practice touch and goes.

All in all, an awesome bluebird flying day for my first real solo! Dutch rolls with the sights locked on Denali, and a nice smooth landing to top it off, hard to beat. But raised a few questions:

1) Do these sound like pretty normal C-85 oil temps and throttle behavior? What's your minimum oil/ambient temp to fly? My mechanic said as long as it's in the green it should be fine, so that would seem to be about -10.

2) Anything else to tape off or insulate? (I did read about the breather tube mod and will check that, mine appears to be rubber and terminates just inside the lower left corner of the cowl, does not extend out, but did seem to form some ice today.

3) What do you wear for winter clothes? Seems a toss up between fire resistant and well insulating. Most of my winter gear is synthetic so I have been trying to switch back to natural fibers. I have a wool undershirt, fannel top and wool jacket (loaded with survival gear), and flannel lined pants with wool long johns that I wear and that is good to about 20 degrees. Below that it seems hard to get away with not using a good synthetic insulating layer. If you wear a nomex layer, is it better as a base layer or outer layer? My gut says outer, if I'm not out before the fire gets through the nomex, chances are slim.

4) What about footwear? I have about as thick of hiking boots as I want to fly in, 200g insulation, wool socks and toe warmers, then an emergency pair of big pack boots in the baggage compartment with camping gear, seems to be working pretty well. Anybody have a winter boot they love that doesn't affect feeling the pedals?

Thanks!
 

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