Skymaster Forum  

Go Back   Skymaster Forum > Messages
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Today's Posts

 
 
Thread Tools Rate Thread Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
  #5  
Unread 04-13-20, 02:38 PM
edasmus edasmus is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: ARR - Aurora, IL - USA
Posts: 420
edasmus is on a distinguished road
Send a message via AIM to edasmus
My experience overall was pretty good. Like everything in aviation, there is always compromises.

Best performance was with good old fashion ice. Stuffed it as full as possible leaving the necessary 2 inches or so of water on the bottom of the cooler to keep the intake submerged. This would yield 45 to 60 minutes of nice cool air. My typical profile was to turn on immediately after engine start and leave it going until gaining enough altitude that cool air was coming in the vents. Depending on how hot it is, taxi times, and so forth, 20 to 30 minutes would be used for take-off and climb.

I would leave it off for duration of cruise and then turn it on when necessary as air warmed during descent. Usually there would be enough cool air available to get me down and to the ramp but not always. Keep in mind that during cruise, ice is still melting in that cooler so there might not be much left after a 3 or 4 hour cruise phase of flight.

I did experiment with using frozen blue gel ice packs (maybe 20 of them stuffed in the cooler) but this did not work as well. The system needs cold water to work. The closer to freezing the better. Water circulating and returned to the cooler has been warmed so the cool air simply would not last very long as the ice packs cannot cool the water back down quick enough.

Using ice, you end up with a much noticed cooler cabin in a C337. It would blow lots of air. This is all good.

The downside is the prep, loading, and unloading. Obviously it needs to be filled 20 to 30 pounds or more of ice and add that to the weight of the unit and you are now lugging a 35 to 40-ish pound cooler likely to the back of the plane in hot weather and now you are already sweating bullets. When you are done, it must be unloaded and drained and now you are sweating more bullets.

So hope this helps. You do get limited cool air but you gotta work for it. Simply your call about whether it is worth it or not.
Reply With Quote
 



Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:49 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.