While my buddies in Michigan and Minnesota follow explicitly the guidelines laid out in Advisory Circular 91-13C-Cold Weather Operation Of Aircraft-we southerners are just beginning to enjoy the six months of the year when good flying weather is not confined to the early morning hours before thermals and sea breezes whip up batch after batch of afternoon air-mass thunderstorms.
Native Floridians are unlikely to know much about removing wheel pants (to keep wheels from icing up), closing vents, or using baffles to avoid overcooling reciprocating engines in flight during winter. For extremely cold temperature operations, all oil lines, oil pressure lines, and tanks, if possible, must be looked over and modified for proper insulation to preclude the possibility of oil congealing. Some airplanes require that you add insulation to the engine and all of its hoses, which is not something that your average pilot can do. When oil gets extremely cold, it gets as thick as glue. Pilots in the far north switch oil viscosity to ensure good lubrication in the dead of winter.
You can walk the ramp and tell which airplanes have flocked south by the carbon monoxide detectors on their panels. Cabin heaters that take warm air from sheathes or muffs around the exhaust manifold or muffler are the norm in light single-engine aircraft. The problem is that any leaks in the exhaust system can enter the aircraft cabin through the heating system. A CO detector warns the pilot of the presence of the odorless poison.
In the toughest low-temperature conditions, northern pilots are forced to pre-warm their engines with portable heaters before startup and, at the end of each flight, pull the batteries out and carry them inside to preserve their charge. Believe me, it never gets that cold in South Florida.
Winter weather here is so benign that some flight instructors get lax in their teaching, and I occasionally come upon student pilots who have never used the primer, carburetor heat, or pitot heat. One pilot on his flight review could not even find the cabin heat knob, much less tell me where the hot air came from and the risks involved with using it. That's a shame. A primary reason people fly is to cover large distances in a short time, so it was extremely short-sighted of his original flight instructor not to at least brief this pilot on the use of cold-weather equipment that is standard on nearly every light airplane.
Winter, for us, is also a time to sit up in the left seat and start really paying attention to what's going on outside the aircraft, because the traffic count rises at South Florida's airports. With such good weather here, many of my friends from the northern reaches of the continent follow the waterfowl right into my backyard each October. More than half of my neighbors disappear in late April only to be heard taxiing down the street en masse toward their hangars shortly after Halloween. These part-time residents, fondly referred to by natives as snowbirds, really have the gig figured out. I may be jealous of their ability to skip out on the doldrums of summer but, truth be told, it is nice to see them return each year in the wake of that first blast of Arctic air. Their arrival signals that a season full of airplane socials, fly-in barbecues, and pancake breakfasts is about to begin anew.
Today is the fourth in a row without billowing rain clouds in the afternoon. The forecast maps show a strong cold front pushing through the Midwest with a tail-end low pressure that might guarantee us some cool air before the week is out. I'll polish up the experimental and make sure it is ready to go flying for the weekend, just in case.
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