starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

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Marenostrum
Airman
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Joined: 08 Dec 2017, 04:21

starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

Post by Marenostrum »

Funny experience....

Yesterday I have flown in the cold winter Alaska. Barrow and around it.
I parked the Cherokee 50 nm south of Barrow in PAQT in the parking area all the night.
Avg temp was -35 Celsius!!
This morning I tried to start as usual but ...nothing...no way to start.
I tried to change the oil...nothing
I was not sure if I primed too much ...so I tried to switch the magnetos off...to start for some seconds with the throttle open...and to repeat the procedure with the Magnetos ON...nothing again.

The procedure in the manual did not worked...

What am I doing wrong?
Thank you
Stefano

Marenostrum
Airman
Posts: 25
Joined: 08 Dec 2017, 04:21

Re: starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

Post by Marenostrum »

update..
I solved the issue by moving the PA in the caribbean...in that warm place I started the PA as usual...then I moved it back to Alaska with the engine running.

But obviously this is not an easy solution in the real word :)

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Lewis - A2A
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Re: starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Hello,

did you use the engine heater kit in the Maint hange to keep the aircraft as warm as you could?

thanks,
Lewis - A2A
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Marenostrum
Airman
Posts: 25
Joined: 08 Dec 2017, 04:21

Re: starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

Post by Marenostrum »

Yes...I did...

Marenostrum
Airman
Posts: 25
Joined: 08 Dec 2017, 04:21

Re: starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

Post by Marenostrum »

But it seems that the heater kit is not enough when the aircraft is parked outside for many hours and with the air temperature <-30°C

Till now the only way I found is to start the engine with AS16 off and using the P3D weather (rarely so cold). If the outside temperature is not below -3/-4 °C, I can start the engine, then, with the engine running, I open AS16

I wonder if in the real world is the same for a PA28 in a -35°C air temp.

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MkIV Hvd
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Re: starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

Post by MkIV Hvd »

It's the same for a real world Cherokee. -35°F or C is far below the temperature at which you can still start the airplane after having its little heater plugged in. This is full blown Herman Nelson territory and even then it'll be a challenge. The best way to pre-heat of course, is to put the airplane in a hangar until it thaws out.

It was quite common, and likely still is in certain situations, for bush pilots to have to drain the oil out of their airplane at the end of their trip so they could pre-heat it on a fire or cook stove before returning it to the airplane so it would start. I'm certainly glad that it was not me pioneering air travel up north... :mrgreen:
Rob Wilkinson
A2A: Civilian Mustang, T-6, Bonanza, Comanche, Cub, C182, Spitfire, P-40, Cherokee, P-51 - VATSIM P4 and some other stuff...

Hook
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Re: starting the cherokee in extreme cold weather

Post by Hook »

MkIV Hvd wrote: 06 Mar 2020, 11:42It was quite common, and likely still is in certain situations, for bush pilots to have to drain the oil out of their airplane at the end of their trip so they could pre-heat it on a fire or cook stove before returning it to the airplane so it would start. I'm certainly glad that it was not me pioneering air travel up north... :mrgreen:
I found an excellent description of this:

Talking about Wien Airlines in Alaska.
Jorgy had 35,000 hours of flight time when he quit flying.
The following is from 1942.

"We drained the oil at night and then brought it into the office where it wouldn’t congeal. It wasn’t real warm there but it was a lot warmer than outside. In the morning we would warm it up with the plumber’s pot to get it good and hot. You’ve got the engine cover on, and you’d start heating the airplane up with two fire pots. When the airplane got warm enough you would take one of the fire pots out and set the oil on that fire pot to get it boiling hot to dump it in. The fire pots were just the same fire pots that the plumbers used in the early days to melt the lead hot, red hot, to seal up the cast-iron joints when you were doing plumbing work. The oil had its own container, a can specially built where you could set it right on top of your plumber’s pot to get it good and hot. That Hamilton took six gallons of oil. It had two three-gallon buckets made specially to go in the firepots that we used to heat the oil. Normally we’d use two of them to heat up the bigger airplanes like the bigger Stinsons, and with the smaller airplanes you only used one fire pot. So you got those fire pots going underneath the airplane in an open fifty-gallon drum with air spaces in between so it would get plenty of air to torch. But you had to stay by them if you were running two fire pots because if one went out, then you’d have to get in there real quick and drag it out of there because it will shoot raw gas up and catch your airplane on fire."

Lester, Jean. Jorgy: The Life of Native Alaskan Bush Pilot and Airline Captain Holger “Jorgy” Jorgensen as told to Jean Lester (Kindle Locations 265-275). Poppies Publishing. Kindle Edition.

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"Most of the airplanes had a normal radial engine and when it was twenty, thirty below we’d have to preheat for a good hour, with the oil out of the engine. We’d just check the prop and you can tell right away when it’s loose, but you want to make sure that all the moisture is out of it. You heat it up and try to get all that moisture out. It sweats on the inside as well as on the outside and you want to dry it out, so you run the fire pot at least an hour to try to get rid of any moisture that could be inside the engine. After you put the hot oil in, you would hand pull the prop through nine blades. They used to tell us to prop the engine by hand to make sure that the oil was being pumped into all the cylinders."

Lester, Jean. Jorgy: The Life of Native Alaskan Bush Pilot and Airline Captain Holger “Jorgy” Jorgensen as told to Jean Lester (Kindle Locations 285-291). Poppies Publishing. Kindle Edition.

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Hook

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