Temperatures acceptable for equipment while flying.....?

[Rcmaster199 at aol.com]

Youze guys are nuts. MY cutoff temp for flying is the same as it is for  
Golf:  50 F. I could care less what the drop-dead temp for the equipment  is. My 
own personal   ...ahem.... equipment, stops working at 50F.
 
MattK
Jax, Fla, where its been 75 and sunny with low wind since a week before New  
Years. But wouldn't you know it, I am baby sitting my grandson so we are  
building and not flying.. it's a great time. Only 9 months old, he loves to move  
the TX sticks around already. I am tickled
 
 
 
In a message dated 1/5/2005 10:55:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
nsrca at shinymetalass.com writes:

On Wed,  5 Jan 2005 07:05:19 -0600
"White, Chris" <chris at ssd.fsi.com>  wrote:

> Hi,
>  
> Hey, I was out flying on  Christmas Eve in OK and it was about 22
> degrees.....  I spent  extra time warming the YS at idle, but thoughts
> were crossing my mind  about how bad the cold weather is on our
> equipment(nylon components  etc....) .  I'm sure the guys up North have
> limits on cold temps  and I'd be interested to hear your concerns or
> special  cares.

I'm a complete pattern newbie, but I live in Anchorage Alaska  and I've
been practicing the sportsman sequence all winter long with my  Somethin'
Extra on skis.  Probably half of the time the temperature  has been in
the single digits (F).  My plane is built up balsa, so I  can't speak to
the composite fuselage dimension changes but about the only  effects I
have noticed on the equipment are the engine is harder to  start
initially and both the idle and high speed mixtures needed to  be
enriched a tad.  I'm running 6V 1100 mAh NiMH flight pack and a 700  mAh
TX pack and I haven't noticed any decrease in flying time per charge  vs.
my summer flying - but I'm also not running digital servos, just  the
old reliable Futaba 3004s.

Would I be flying a $800+ composite  masterpiece off snow and ice on
skis?  Probably not.  However, I  built the SE to have fun with this
winter and so far it's a complete blast  plus I get the benefit of still
being able to fly 3-4 times a week (and I  need all the practice I can
get!)

Just my experience.  If  anyone wants to swap cold flying strategies and
tips, I'll be glad to share  what I know - but the biggest trick is just
getting out there  :-)

BTW, I normally don't go out below -10 F because I can't keep my  fingers
warm enough to last through a flight and haven't gotten a  tranmitter
mitt yet.  The 100% scale recip guys up here stop flying @  -30 F on the
ground as a general rule of thumb.  The turbines go a bit  lower, but
they try to keep them running all day.

--  
Tom


 
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