Winter Flying

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Phil Green]

For winter slope soaring I take both in case theres no one else there, fingerless mitts for flying alone, and a fur-lined transmitter muff if there's someone to launch for me. The type I have has elasticated cuffs and its almost impossible to get your launching-hand back into the muff so a helper is essential, if not its the fingerless mitts.

I take a couple of petrol hand-warmers and keep one in the tranny mitt. They're much more reliable than the charcoal ones. A hot drink is pretty much essential!

I cant remember what it was but we had something delivered in a strong polystyrene box with a lid, for winter electric flying I take my lipos in there cosy & warm with one of the hand-warmers wrapped in the bottom of the box. Drawing heavy current from cold lipos is a Bad Thing as their esr is relatively high and consequently they suffer severe internal heating.

With bit of prep theres no reason not to enjoy a bit of winter flying

Cheers
Phil

[John Privett]

Posted by Dave Smith 15 on 23/11/2015 16:38:08:

I used to live in Finland and we'd fly from frozen lakes in the winter. Around -25 was the coldest we'd bother with, though.

Hi Dave - I wondered when you'd pop up over here!

Night-time temperature last time I paid a brief visit to Finland (a little north of Kittilä, just inside the Arctic Circle) was between -25 and -30C. That felt seriously cold to me - though the standard-issue skidoo-drivers' suits that we were equipped with helped a lot.

I seriously cannot even contemplate flying a model in those conditions! We did some evening skiing on a floodlit slope, and that was quite an experience. I'm not used to ski goggles frosting up on the inside surface as well as the outside - and any hair that crept out from under our hats turned white within seconds - not that I'd notice that so much these days!

[Cuban8]

It's not so much the cold that stops me during the winter, but the dampness and mud that does it for me and heralds the building season.

You can prepare for sub-zero temperatures (especially if they last for weeks on end) with the right gear and preparation, but waterlogged, mud covered fields are just too much bother. If we get a good hard frost that keeps the ground solid - then I'll be out.

[flytilbroke]

A useful item,,,, Little Hotties. Use once and dispose of although they normally stay useful for in excess of six hours. Great in the gloves or the pockets, also good in an insulated "Battery Box" for helping the batteries from getting too cold. Do a Google for decent priced bulk buy.

The same product also goes under other names.

[Andy.I]

I and my lad use neoprene fishing gloves bought very cheaply from Lidl. The ends of the thumb and forefinger can be folded back and secured with velcro. They work well but the velcro gives you a bit of a shock if you absent-mindedly scratch your nose!

When it's very cold on the field or moderately cold on the slopes I have found my old motorcycle suit is ideal to keep warm and dry.

Edited By Andy.I on 29/11/2015 11:04:10

[Braddock, VC]

I bought a pair of those r/cer's gloves last week, haven't tried them for flying but I wore them out duck flighting tonight . Ace. I usually return home with both index fingers numb due to them being on the barrels and trigger guard of my gun but tonight my hands were warm. Best £30 I've spent.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Don Fry]

Braddock, "duck fighting tonight", I am intrigued, I can I visage fighting a dog, a plane, a person, but a duck? I have just squinted a bit better with the eyeballs, and read "flighting". I am even more confused. This sounds like eating, so I am interested, but confused.

[Alan Gorham_]

You have to flight them before you can shoot them.

[Braddock, VC]

Nothing really confusing, just jargon. Dependant on the moon wild ducks eat at night so they fly from their sleeping quarters to where they are going to eat. On occasions they drop into a pond to congregate before flying out en masse.

Some people feed the ponds with corn and offal etc. to attract them, I just keep an eye out then, when suitable conditions arise, stroll down to my little pond and try to harvest a few of them.

Depending on the moon and the type of cloud cover they are extremely visible, to those that are not aurally impaired, they are also very noisy in flight, both the sound of their pinions and the chatter they make.

Tonight wasn't the best for either visibility or sound, heavy cloud cover completely obscuring the moon and half a hurricane blowing to mask their wingbeats so I was back indoors by 5.15 It's good exercise for an old man like me walking 1/2 a mile out and back in a muddy field carrying a load of crud on my boots.

It can be a lonely old game and tbh my heart's not really in it since I had my old lab put down, I'm too old now to take on another dog and some of my upper arm joints are getting arthritic which kind of reduces my mobility when I want to shoot the damn smokepole.

Anyway, back to my earlier post, when conditions are cold and frosty the duck tend to congregate where the ground is soft but the old gun tends to get extremely cold and up till this weekend I'd been using a pair of damart inner gloves and pigskin outer ones but they are getting on for 40 years old now and have quite a few holes so fingers against cold metal tend to really stiffen up. The RC gloves were excellent for the couple of hours I stood out there so I'm happy, the gun went bang several times and ended the nest robbing careers of a couple of magpies but I missed the duck completely, they had the wind under their tails and were far too quick for my old bones. Nice to be out though watching winter develop.

I hope I've helped with your confusion Donald

[Phil Green]

These fully-enclosing transmitter muffs - I just wondered, has anyone flown in a downpour? I mean not just a bit of sea fret, but proper rain?

I know some are concerned about 2.4g and water (the resonance thing BTW is nonsense) but I've done range-checks in the rain and found little or no difference. Just wondered?

Cheers
Phil

[Martin Whybrow]

For my hands - a pair of the RCgloves, bought when they halved the price, really good to wear and don't have much effect on the feel of the sticks - I haven't needed to wear the liners yet. I used to use fingerless gloves - well actually, they stopped just on the the top joint of the finger, these worked very well, but weren't as flexible as the RC gloves. I suffer from RA in the fingers, so keeping the joints warm is crucial.

Body wise, I have a Nordic fishing suit, courtesy of the in-laws who spend much of every winter sitting on frozen lakes! Far more flexible than a big coat, and very warm without causing me to overheat in the wintwr sun (when we have it).

[Lindsay Todd]

how about this for a product seen at one of the Barkston Events a couple of years back, powered off a lipo as I recall

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Posted by Phil Green on 01/12/2015 22:04:27:

These fully-enclosing transmitter muffs - I just wondered, has anyone flown in a downpour? I mean not just a bit of sea fret, but proper rain?

I know some are concerned about 2.4g and water (the resonance thing BTW is nonsense) but I've done range-checks in the rain and found little or no difference. Just wondered?

Cheers
Phil

A friend and I flew in pouring rain a few weeks ago. He braved the downpour to test his "patent" perspex rainshield and I stood just inside the open doorway of our metal framed and clad garage building, which faces out to the field. Neither of us experienced the slightest problem and we deliberately flew out to a reasonable range to see if any problems were reported (both Jeti telemetry equipped) - recorded signal levels and quality were normal when checked afterwards.