Lessons learned about flying in colder weather

Hi Everyone -

Baby it's cold outside!!!⛄ To fly or not to fly?!

Well, I will always fly when I can, no matter the conditions (except rain and/or too much wind), but I have learned several lessons about how to keep myself warm (I'm 56, so I hope I know to do that by now!), but most importantly keep my planes flying and my gear operating safely and properly when the mercury starts to drop.  Now I know some of you will say, "why not just stay home and build something or fly the simulator?!"  Well, I'm actually pretty lucky where I live on the west coast of Canada and other than when we have some good wind and rain, I can fly pretty much all year round.  Although the conditions in this video were a bit extreme...I walked away with some flights done and my planes intact👍

The benefit of most winter flying where I live when it isn't raining, windy or there is freezing fog is that the air is normally dead calm and nice and dense which makes for some velvety smooth flying.  Plus, most of the sane folks in my flying club stay at home, so I pretty much have the field to myself to "yank and bank" to my heart's content.

Now luckily, I have a clubhouse at my flying field with a wood burning stove in it and a very good supply of fire wood, so I can get a fire going, have a place to keep most of my batteries warm and go inside to get myself warmed up if I start to get too cold.

Obviously, you have to be your own judge of what you and your gear can handle, but I have flown in conditions as cold as -7C/19 F and often right around the freezing mark and have enjoyed endless hours of fun without doing too much damage to myself or my planes.  However, there are some guidelines I follow and some lessons learned I will share with you now.

Taking care of myself

I have lived in some pretty frosty places in my life in Canada, so I'm relatively cold tolerant (though as I get older I like it less and less), but I have learned to dress accordingly to keep myself comfortable and able to keep flying without too much problem.

As you normally hear about dressing for the cold, best to dress in layers so that if it ends up being warmer than you thought, you can strip a layer or two off.  Nothing gets you colder than starting to sweat and then having your clothes get wet, lesson learned far too many times for me!

Starting at my feet, I wear some nice warm boots with thick duffle sock inserts.  When I was a kid we called them snowmobile boots as that is what most folks who drive snowmobiles in winter wore.  I got these ones fairly cheap at Walmart (about $20 I seem to remember).

Since I spend a lot of time just standing around when at the field, important to keep my feet warm and dry to extend my flying day.  I guess you wear whatever pants and or long underwear you need to suit your conditions and your cold tolerance.  Up top, I normally wear a longer sleeved shirt under a sweatshirt with a durable nylon vest on top of it all (more on why I chose the vest and don't zip it up later).

On my head, I normally am OK with a ball cap, but luckily my sweetie got me one of these BUFFs for my birthday that is very versatile and I can show my support for my favorite NHL hockey team!

You can see I am wearing it around my neck in the picture above, but because it is a tube, I can also pull it up to cover my ears, wear it like an ear band to keep my ears warm and still have my ball cap protect my eyes from the sun.  

Since our transmitters are made mostly of plastic and metal, they can act as "cold sinks" and your hands can get pretty cold, pretty quick, not a good thing.  I have experimented off and on with thin gloves or gloves with the finger tips cut off, but they never felt that comfortable to me and I didn't have the right "feel" in holding my transmitter or working the sticks.  However, in between flights if my fingers are getting cold, I will pop these synthetic fleece gloves on that I got at the dollar store.

They are warm and toasty and get my hands warm pretty quick and keep them warm if I'm not flying for awhile.  Plus, since I only paid a few bucks for them, if I forget them at the field and they "walk away", I'm not out a bunch of money.  Another trick for keeping hands and even feet warm is those little chemical hand/feet warmer packs you can buy at big sporting goods stores.  A couple guys I fly with use them all the time and they keep warm for several hours.

I also normally have a thermos or an insulated travel mug with a hot beverage that helps keep me warm on the inside as well.  Black, strong coffee is my "jet fuel" of choice👌

Taking care of my planes

Although I didn't today (I made the mistake of believing the forecast...oops), if I think weather and the field conditions will be less than ideal in the winter, I will take a "beater" plane that I normally build and fly a lot in wintry conditions.  This year I built an 85% RC Powers Su-30 V4.  I built this plane solidly to perform, but didn't waste anytime on a paint job, used old gear that still worked but I wouldn't worry if it got damaged or stopped working and I'm not too worried if the plane gets a little banged up.  What is kind of ironic is whenever I have built a "beater" plane like this, they end up being amazing planes that I often fly well into the summer months.  They never seem to let me down :)

By necessity, I store my planes in an unheated garage, so they are already cold soaked when I put them in the car and the ten minute drive to the field does nothing to warm them up much.  As you might imagine, the foam and glue joints can actually get a bit brittle when frozen, so extra care needs to be taken when handling and transporting them.  Like many folks, I have probably done more damage to my planes getting them in and out of the car than at the field, especially when they are cold.

The ESCs and motors don't mind the cold too much and I've never had either of those give me much grief, however batteries and servos can be another matter 😓

Taking care of my gear

When plastic/nylon gear servos are very cold, it is very easy to damage them if being too aggressive when they have not had a chance to warm up with use.  For the first couple flights, I tend to fly a bit more conservatively to allow the servos to warm up and let the foam either warm up in the sun a bit or not have too much stress put on it too quickly.  I have been lucky and not stripped too many servos in my park jet career, but when I have it has always happened when the weather has been cold and I have been too aggressive too early in the flight session.

Batteries are the one item that can cause issues when the weather is cold.  I have found from experience that Lipo batteries seem to be happiest between 5-25C or 41-77 F.  Outside that temperature range, I try to either fly a bit more conservatively (often hard for me to do...😏) or I reduce my flight time by about 30 seconds.  I normally set my timer for 5 minutes, so if it is really cold and I still want to turn and burn, I will set it for 4:30.  The reason for this is even if the battery is fairly warm when I put it into my plane, it gets pretty cold pretty quick in the air and I have found if I run them too long, the cells can discharge at some goofy rates and this is not good for the long term health of my battery.

As I mentioned before, I have a clubhouse with a wood stove, so once I get a fire going, I store most of my batteries in there to keep warm and then go grab a few at a time as I fly.  This also gives me an opportunity to warm myself if need be.  The couple of batteries I grab so I don't have to keep walking back and forth I keep in the pockets of the vest shown in the picture above.  This keeps them close to my body and they don't get too cold and if something happens, I have three layers of clothing between myself and my body and by not zipping the vest, I can shrug it off very quickly so as not to hurt myself if something happens with one of the batteries.  I used to keep them in my pants pocket, but when I read of a fellow almost burning his "bits" off when a Lipo caught fire in his pants pocket, I keep them in my vest pockets now.  I also ensure I have no keys, coins or anything else metal in those pockets to prevent the chance that might come in contact with the battery leads and cause a short/fire🔥

Before and after flights

When landing on frosty runways or even in a little snow, there can be some ice that builds up in the "intakes" of some park jets.

Before launching my plane, I always check for this and remove it as when it becomes dislodged from the airflow, it can nick my prop or cause significant damage to the foam in the rear half of the plane.

Also, I check the inside of the electronics bay, especially if there is some snow around to make sure any ice/frost/snow is removed before the next flight.  The only time I have "cooked" an ESC at the field, I had some snow in the electronics bay, some of which must have got under the heat shrink around my ESC, melted and shorted it out.  Fortunately, all I lost was the ESC, but it could have been worse shorting the battery...yikes!

I have flown when there is snow on the ground and if it gets a little rough and icy, I will put some duct tape around the front of the intakes and any other spot where the foam might get torn up by sliding across the rough unforgiving ice and snow.

Well, there you have it, these are some lessons I have learned from several winters of flying.  As I mentioned, I guess we all have to be the judge of where we make our weather cutoff, if you aren't really confident in yourself or your gear in colder conditions, better to stay home and fly another day.  I am blessed with a clubhouse I can heat by lighting a fire which is a big plus when need be, but I have had many, many hours of enjoyment flying in the cold when the air is dense and velvety smooth.

Park Jet noise...the "other" sound of freedom😎

Cheers,

Scott