gcb

Well lets share some stories about winter flying. Most of my winter flying was as a teen back in Lexington, KY.

We were flying at a high school baseball field (you could do that back then) and it was bitter cold. Almost all fuels used castor oil back then and some of us were using propane torches to heat the engine enough to crank it over (no starters back then). Problem is that we would occasionally get an alcohol fire...which you can't see until the paint on your plane starts blistering. Still we got some flights in.
One of the guys tried adding skis to his CL sport plane. He didn't quite have it right and his plane would mostly dig-in upon landing and bring his plane to an abrupt halt. Still, we were having fun.
The flying session ended when a sudden heavy snow started and the guy flying at the time could not see his plane. As a matter of fact, he could only see about ten feet of lines. Between the line position and the sound, he knew where the plane was...until the engine quit.
Fortunately he held the handle steady and got the plane down in one piece. We had already packed everything but his plane so we called it a day and headed for a drive-in restaurant.
Ahhh...those WERE the days.

George

Dsaydak

I also did some winter flying back in my teens. A buddy & I built a couple of Scarinzizi's Lil Dynamites and flew them regularly from a skating rink located on the grounds of a local elementary school. The rink had a shack that was heated by a pot bellied wood stove where we warmed up as required. Starting the engines was not a problem and our U-Reelys made it easy to wind up the lines after our flights. Hah! try that these days and you are liable to be arrested.

Dennis

COOPERFLYING

Tried to fly some 1/2A's last week, the temp was 23 degrees...Warmed the engine and the fuel up on the car than ran out and fired it up. it would run perfect long enough for me to get the handle than it would die. It was just to cold to run and so was I!

Jim Thomerson

I flew Monday. It was cool enough I put on a longsleeve shirt. Sunny with a light breeze. When I lived in Illinois I flew one day at 24 degrees. There wasn't any wind and it wasn't too bad. I had one of the Sig plastic bellcranks in the airplane and I wondered if it was OK in the cold but no problem.

Jim

gcb

Jim,
Rub it in! Rub it in! It's supposed to get down to one degree tonight. Not as bad as some areas but cold is cold.

Dennis,
The Lil Dynamite is one of the ships I've always wanted to build but have not yet got around to it (I'm 63). One of Bob Hunt's SFVM video tapes had an interview with Larry. At that time, he still had the original and it looked like new. How did yours and your buddy's fly?

George

Jyrki

http://kkweb.mine.nu/~jyrki/rc/video/

I put up a temporary site for some of my winter experiment videos. This is my "backyard" in Finland January 2003

jehold66203

John Bender and I were out flying this past Wednesday. No wind and the P Force let me know it too. Couldn't beleive it was up in the 50's. The week before we were flying his Super Clown in low 20 degree temps. Just have to dress for temps. DOC

Ryan Nau

My Feedback: (54)

I had the old tomahawk out yesturday for a few flights after my college classes were over. I havent flown CL since new years. It felt good to get some flights in. It was around 10 degrees outside, but pretty calm. I keep my tomahawk up in my room so I can go flying when Im not home if I want to.

proulxlaw

My Feedback: (3)

I put some Dubro skis on one of my planes and filmed the flight and parachute drop, edited the footage and added some music. This was actually only my second flight with a real plane but, my first on skis. I flew it last Sat. 01/21/2005 off of a lake near my house. I would be happy to share it but, it's compressed as a real media video and I cannot upload it. Any suggestions?