Winter Flying Gloves

[Teacher]

Hi all,

 

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and looking to the New Year celebration tonight.

 

My question is, and I do apologise if this subject has already be raised recently. Winter Flying gloves, can any recommend a decent pair of gloves that keep your hands toasty warm while flying. Are they any such gloves out there (and I have looked at most UK model shops) which have been designed for winter RC model flying.

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one trying to fly with ice cold hands 🥶

 

Dave. 

[Lipo Man]

I’ve tried several different types of gloves, and I can’t fly with any of them! Surprisingly they make flying much harder - for me anyway. A few clubmates have those pouch things into which you put your transmitter, and your hands go in through elasticated cuffs. I may try one of those. 
Good luck!

[Tom Gaskin 1]

I use what are known as 'running gloves" - made of very thin synthetic material that keeps the wind off your hands, while being thin enough to still feel the sticks. Alternatively get hold of a 'tranny mitt" to put both hands and tx in, there is even room in the mitt for one of those fishermans' hand warmers 😀

 

 

Tom

[leccyflyer]

Having tried many different gloves for flying I find that I always revert to my pair of Thinsulate heavy woolen gloves, which I've cut the tips off one finger and thumb on each hand. That modification was made once those excellent warm gloves were a little worse of wear. Sadly that has degradation progressed further, with a big hole next to the palm and disaggregation of the inner and outer skins. The loose wool strands stick to any bit of Velcro and continue to unravel. They are my warmest gloves though. I found the angler's neoprene gloves with the fold back fingertips to be worse than useless.

 

A few weeks ago, when the weather was Baltic, I invested in some rechargeable lipo powered handwarmers. Trouble is that even on the lowest settings they are just too hot to use when flying, so they get swapped out and only used between flights.

[Wookman]

Thinsulate fingerless mittens whilst actually flying. Add a big pair of skiing gloves over the top between flights. Most of my winter flying is F3f so fairly short flights of 5 to 10mins each. For more prolonged flying I would use a tx mitt. 

[PDB]

Taking blood thinners I suffer from cold fingers, these gloves have worked fine for me on the slopes https://amzn.eu/d/cSwoJ2N

[steve too]

These days, if it is too cold for my Ansell Hyflex gloves then I go home.

[Geoff S]

I've tried electrically heated fingerless mitts powered from a LiPo so-called Powerpack with a USB port.  They're intended to use for using a PC in a cold environment.  They work quite well.  I've always hated wearing gloves because of the loss of 'feel' - I never wore them for sailing as a helm (necessary for crewing, unfortunately) and wore the thinnest weather would allow for motorcycling.

 

I've tried transmitter mitts but they restrict your hands too much, especially as I use a tray.

[John Lee]

There is an extensive thread from 10 years back with plenty of suggestions:

 

It is interesting to follow the thread with the change from scepticism & outrage at the start to 'a fantastic buy' at the end for the dedicated RCGloves. I've been using mine every flying session in the winter over those 10 years and they are still as good as new, better in fact as they have become more supple over time. I've also got a spare second pair still new in the packaging but it looks like the originals will outlast me!

[PeterF]

I have a pair of the RCGloves tjat I purchased many years ago when the price was reduced to circa £30, still going strong, used them today for 5 flights.

[Tim Flyer]

I use neoprene fingerless fishing gloves. Fishing gear is cheap and tends to be nice and warm and well made.  They are fine for flying in all but the worst weather.

There are a number of different types available.

 

[Phil Green]

Me & Mike_K had a cold retro-flying day at Buckminster last year (!) and Mike was using his 'heated Skyleader' tx.

The tx runs from a 2S 5Ah lipo so Mike just added a switched resistive heater to the metal back panel.

I cant remember but I'd guess ten or twenty ohms?  It works amazingly well, while my fingers were frozen to the bone,

his were toasty warm without any gloves 🙂

We swapped a few times throughout the day so I did have a few flights with warm hands, the difference it makes is amazing  🙂

Someone recently questioned why you'd choose a metal cased tranny like the Skyleader - here you go, another reason!

I'd taken a gas-ring, Ridge Monkey and a pack of bacon Rostis so was able to repay Mikes generosity, that was a brilliant day out!

Cheers

Phil

 

Edit: I just found Mikes thread, I remembered wrongly, its a separate heater battery, and a 12w heat-pad,  
https://mode-zero.uk/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=238

 

Edited January 1 by Phil Green

[Engine Doctor]

Try a pair of the orange nitrile gloves that mecchanics use. The dimpled varietry allthough very thin keep the icy wind away but still let you feel the controls. They are also very tough compared to the blue or black nitrile glovesand last a few wares. Also very handy in the workshop for dirty , greasy , paint or gluing jobs. Beware if you try them order a small box first to check size. I ordered a box of large as that size in most makes fits fine but on the orange ones i really need the xl size as thry come out a bit smaller.

After a session a lighter fuel hand warmer quickly restores glowing hands 

[john davidson 1]

I have both a lighter fuel hand warmer and an  Ocapoo lithium , the lighter fuel one has to be filled according to the time run and is not regulated, but the Ocapoo has three settings and of course can be switched off, very handy (pun intended)

[Peter Jenkins]

I bought a pair of RC gloves when the price dropped to £50 and they were pretty good.  However, unless you fly with them all the time, the change over from summer to winter conditions means that you lose the fine control you develop with gloveless fingers.  These kid leather gloves are the same as used by RAF Aircrew and they always fly with gloves as this was found to offer some protection if there were to be a fire in the cockpit.  They however go for the skin tight fitting to give the required tactile feel which is no good when you want to keep warm!  

 

The idea behind RC Gloves was to use the next size up from a close fit and to don a pair of knitted inner gloves (provided) to provide the insulation to allow you to fly in freezing conditions.  I found that the slight "give" in the fingers of the gloves was difficult to get used to.  However, when the guy was selling off his stock at £25 a pair, I bought a spare pair for me and a smaller pair for my wife who suffers from cold hands.  I'm still using the originals and find them excellent but I always take them off to fly as I'm almost always flying an tough aerobatic schedule.  I use a pair of Zippy handwarmers that live in my trouser pockets and warm my hands up after flying before donning the RC Gloves again.

 

I think the basic price of the high quality leather gloves was always going to dissuade us model flyers from forking out £100 for a pair of gloves for use in the winter!  Needless to say, RC Gloves is no more.

[Teacher]

Hi all,

 

And thank you all for your many suggestions.

 

It does seem to be a hole in the the market for a decent pair of well designed winter gloves aimed at the RC flyer. To save our cold pinkies.

 

I do agree with "Lipo Man" I do find it hard to wear gloves when I fly. Also, one thing that has come across with many of the answers is we like to feel what our aircraft/glides are doing between our fingers.

 

Hmmmm Lipo powered hand warmers and gloves as " Ieccyflyer" says, I believe but haven't tried myself, they can get uncomfortable too warm when flying. But, I guess they are both and not so good ones on the market. See eBay! 

 

However, as has been suggested they could be very useful between flights! I think I,will give this a try and chop off the end of fingers of neoprene type glove, and see how it goes.

 

That's until we get a pair designed just for us!

 

Thank you all, Dave.

 

 

[leccyflyer]

Dave -it's worth cadging a go off a club mate or fellow flyer if you want to try the lipo powered gloves and handwarmers. My pal Graham has a heated pair of thick gloves which keep the fingers toasty, but you need to take them off whilst you are flying. 

 

I think if they still had those £96 a pair gloves available at the final price of about a third of that I'd plump for a try of those. Decent flying gear can open up so many flying days which would otherwise be miserable. I recently invested in a thermal all-in-one waterproof and windproof flying suit and it makes even the coldest day flyable - add some foot warmers to a pair of thick thermal sock in the wellies, a high efficiency wooly hat and some decent gloves and it makes for a much nicer flying experience.

[Chris Walby]

Firstly there are two problems, those that fly "pinch" and those "thumbs" so a designer pair would need to cope with both!

 

As a thumber its all about keeping my hands worm until I fly so asked my daughter to knit a pair of woolly gloves, but with a feature! They have a removeable thumb cover (attached to the glove like a hinge) so I can get right to the flight line and then its thumbs on sticks, but the weave is a bit open so they don't work that well in a biting wind.

 

I have tried heated pads inside gloves but they are too hot in a local position and my thumbs get cold. I have a pair of heated gloves with integral batteries and adjustable temp so we will see how I get on with those...tempted to make a hole in the thumb of the glove so I can feel the stick.

 

If anyone has found any gloves where the heater elements run into the finger area then please let me know, cheers

[RedBaron]

Try MacWet gloves, not the golfing ones but the shooting ones.

Hard wearing, keeps one dry and warm and easy to fly with.

[Gunnar Borseth]

I have a Raydiowarm transmitter mitt, but I am not really comfortable with it. I prefer hunting gloves. You can pull off the thumb and the fingers. Suits both thumb and pinch pilots. https://www.jaktogfriluft.no/klar/tilbehor/hansker-og-votter/beaver-fleecehanske-tinsulate 

 

When I was younger we could go flying in -15 celcius. Now I like to stay indoor in the winter. 
 

[GrumpyGnome]

Neoprene fishing gloves, which have fold back portions for the thumb and first finger tip. A full coffee cup warms my hands between flights......... deffo needed as my hands aren't exactly toasty - ok, but not warm.

 

Must admit it's only these last 2 winters where I've refused to fly because of the cold.  Probably an age thing!

 

The problem with specialist stuff, like RC gloves, is the high production/development costs leads to a high retail price.  Coupled with a small market, it makes business success very difficult.