Timer setup night before or get to hangar before flight and turn on. I live in GA, plane in insulated hangar, never 40 degrees or below in hangar. Shove end of flex pipe over Left exhaust pipe.
i don't think i would risk an unattended heater with an electric motor and a heating element that glows red unattended, let alone in a hangar that is already 40 deg.
I am not trying to be a smart @$$ or to hijack this thread.
My DIY preheat is shown here. Able to turn heat or AC up or down from an app on my smartphone.
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This is a 900w interior car warmer, metal casing, mounted on an aluminum base. The extra lighter gauge 'flap' clips over the cowl pins to hold the heater in place. Compact size makes it easy to pack, has proven effective in Canadian winter for 10 years.
Very innovative and ingenious bunch yall are.
But the big question is, does the forced air heaters via a cowl raise the oil temps up?
Very innovative and ingenious bunch yall are.
But the big question is, does the forced air heaters via a cowl raise the oil temps up?
Cheapest cell phone switch I could find was Switcheon at $249 for two plugs, and free cell service for one year. Subsequent years cost $4.00 per day ($50/year). No sim, just a nice app using IoT G5 or LTE with actual feed back as to whether or not the switch actually turned on. Great device, has never failed me and I use it a lot. I have the cockpit heater on the other circuit so I can turn on both devices separately or together
Very innovative and ingenious bunch yall are.
But the big question is, does the forced air heaters via a cowl raise the oil temps up?
Although it is more ducting, all the ideas in this thread would be more efficient if the cowling "outlet" air was recirculated to the heater "inlet". Just saying.
Unless you had well insulated ducting the heat loss would be greater in the return air line to the heater. ....
Of course the return air forced back into the heater would have heat loss. Otherwise, nothing gained! Come on...it won't be cooler than new (un-recirculated) cold air!
All these look pretty cool and I'm sure they all work well but it seems like a lot of work for something that already exists.
The Reiff system with cylinder bands and oil sump heating plate keeps everything nice and toasty here in Michigan. And of course a remote on/off switch.
Wife and I needed to make a trip to N Texas a couple weekends ago and I knew the Temps the morning of departure was going to be in the 20's! I needed something to preheat a little for sure! I dug around and came up with an old hairdryer and a 8" piece of thin walled galvanized pipe and brought along an extension cord. We got to the airport it was 27 deg, I pushed the plane over near a 110v outlet and inserted (wedged) the hairdryer in between my 4 pipe exhaust. The end of the 2" pipe was about an inch from the oil sump. I left my cowl plugs in and fired it up and then we went in the FBO and watched 1 episode of Leave it to Beaver, checking on the hairdryer several times to make sure I wasn't burning up the plane. To my surprise and delight, the oil temp came up from 27 deg to 76 in about 35 minutes!
All these look pretty cool and I'm sure they all work well but it seems like a lot of work for something that already exists.
The Reiff system with cylinder bands and oil sump heating plate keeps everything nice and toasty here in Michigan. And of course a remote on/off switch.
According to Mike Busch on Engines,
All the warm oil in the world won’t help if the crank-to-bearing or piston-to-cylinder clearances go to zero. .
I think the book has those numbers but I don't have it handy at the moment. And he mentions that the numbers won't be the same for every engine since engine wear will be a factor. There's good info in this article at AOPA, but I really think it's worth getting the book, and not just for this. Tons of good info on preheating, cooling, oil, repairs, operation, maintenance etc. especially for people like me who are good with a wrench but not necessarily engine experts.Does Mike have numbers for when our engines cold seize?
Seems like the aluminum and copper and babbitt would shrink faster than the steel by their coefficients of expansion/temp
There's good info in this article at AOPA
I like #26 blanket. If you look at any real cold weather operators, Northern Canada, Alaska parked outside they put insulated covers over cowl.