Just recently the winter solstice wandered through my neighborhood. As a result, fall receded into the pages of history, while cold, harsh conditions took a foothold. When I woke up this morning it was a bitter 43° Fahrenheit outside. The high temperature for the day won’t get out of the 60s. Bbrrr.
In my younger years when I lived up north I can recall the temperature dipping into the negative numbers. So cold it hurt to breathe. The snow and the slush, ugh. The mere thought of it makes me remember the brutally painful sensation of my coccyx hitting the surface of an ice-covered sidewalk.
Never again. Nope, not for me.
Here in Florida winter is often the most uncomfortable week of the year. This year seems to be particularly harsh, with temperatures remaining below 70° for nearly two weeks. That’s unpleasant for those of us living on the big sandbar down south.
Northern folks may chuckle at how soft and delicate we Sunstate residents are. They’d be right, too. We turn our heaters on and huddle in the house when the thermometer sinks below a temperature where y’all are still wearing shorts to the store and T-shirts while walking the dog.
Regardless of what you think constitutes uncomfortably cold, winter brings risks to us all. That’s true when driving over a combination of packed snow and ice to an intersection near the bottom of a downhill grade, and it’s true when we climb into an airplane to fly through that thick, clear winter air.
The risks are real. My advice is to act like a Boy Scout and be prepared.
Here in the south, we may be pansies about the cold, but we’re heartfelt pansies. We adjust the thermostat at the house. We crank the heater in the car. And we certainly engage the cabin heat when we’re climbing up into an airplane with plans to lift off into air that is cold enough to flirt with the freezing level.
The actual outside air temperature doesn’t matter. What’s at issue is that we’ve willingly opened the cockpit to the possibility of a bit of warmth wafting over us. Even in the draftiest cockpit, that heat, drawn from the engine as a waste product and routed over our chilly bodies, is welcome. What may come with it is not.
That heat is generated from the burning of fossil fuels. That process has provided humanity with the power to move mountains…literally. But it also results in the production of Carbon Monoxide. CO. A deadly gaseous air pollutant that can and will creep into any space it has access to. That’s true of your home should you be foolhardy enough to run a gas-powered generator in your attached garage or allow the flue to your gas heater to clog up. CO can seep into your home where it makes the whole family sleepy or muddle headed. They may feel a bit sick. Then it kills them.
When I was young, a friend and his dad were out running errands. At home his mom started the car in the garage to warm it up before she and my friend’s siblings headed out to do errands of their own. They never got that far. It was a true tragedy.
Carbon Monoxide poisoning is serious business.
In the aircraft we would do well to make use of the wide variety of Carbon Monoxide detectors on the market. They range from very inexpensive to quite costly. Make your pick based on the factors that make sense to you, but make the pick. A colorless, odorless, deadly gas is trying to find its way into your space. Protect yourself and your passengers.
Of course, up north where it gets really cold there is a beautiful winter phenomenon celebrated in poetry and song. It glistens when the sun hits it just right. And the kid in all of us will occasionally write a message by making voids in this wintery spectacle of sublimation.
I’m talking about frost, of course.
Frost is beautiful. It really is. Whatever it covers gains a look of majesty and wonder as this thin coating of ice encrusts it. Personally, I have always enjoyed seeing the whisps of white vapor rising from the frozen surface as the sun provides warmth and sublimation returns the moisture to the air where it came from.
As pretty as it is, frost is also a huge danger to aircraft and the pilots who refuse to accept the risk it presents.
When I flew in the northeast many years ago, I met a number of pilots who would cheerfully fly in the early morning as the sun rose and the world around them began to stir awake. They put to the air with frost on their wings and tail.
“It’s no big deal,” they assured me. “Frost barely weighs anything. It’s not a factor.”
They were at least partially right. Frost is extremely light. But they were also dead wrong. It is a significant factor.
Frost is the kryptonite of airflow. To the air molecules attempting to flow over the wing it is a forest of obstacles that causes them to twist and turn and bump into each other and lose their place. It’s a lift killer.
The airplane may fly with frost on its wings. Or it may not. It may gain some lift, but not enough to climb out of ground effect. Or it may fly with difficulty, until the frost blows off one wing and stays put on the other. Talk about asymmetrical lift. That’s more excitement than I need.
Winter is a challenge. It always has been. Me, I’ve got to wear long pants and a jacket. It’s annoying. But I do it so I can keep the cabin heat on “Off” throughout the whole winter if I can.
And I don’t fly with frost on my wings. An issue I resolved by relocating to a place where frost doesn’t really happen.
Use your own method. But use it.
Ah, the bane of CO. Sounds like people need to convert to water cooled engines with coolant air that bypasses/flows Around the engine compartment and thence into the cabin. Guess there aren’t too many of those, tho’ (too automotive-ish, I guess)