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West Texas flying

sshore

sshore

Active member
Supporting Member
Longview TX
Aircraft Year
1995
Aircraft Type
114B/115
Reg Number
N6105U
Serial Number
14625
Made the trek out to Midland today to visit my son and daughter in law. WOW! I forgot how hot it gets out here! We started out at 8,000' at 68 OAT and by the time we started our descent into Midland Air Park (KMDD) the OAT had risen to 78 degrees F. Of course by then we were only 4800' AGL. The descent to landing was definitely not comfortable.

If I lived out here, I would really want an airplane with an AC in it. The 114B did great, but the pilot took a long nap after the flight.

Supposed to be 109 tomorrow afternoon. We will definitely be planning an early morning departure Sunday morning.
 
Yes I have spent a lot of time in the Permian Basin. I sometimes refer to it as the the second level of hell.

The company would have those trailers that I always swore didn't have a paper width of insulation. It's all over for a while since the company went belly up two weeks ago and told me I don't have to come to work anymore.

Anyway, leave early or calculate that density!
 
Get those rear windows tinted will help a great deal. It helped mine.
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I have some of those cling on shades that were very helpful. It just was the hot air coming out of the vents that was a killer.

One complaint I have in the 114B (I guess the same as the 112 and 114?) is the lack of a panel vent. The vent down at your feet doesn't do much good and the ones in the ceiling are OK, but the plane really needs one in the panel blowing directly at you. Of course today it would have just been hot air.
 
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Stephen my wife hates the heat and I try to tolerate it. We found a good small fan for the plane, from Walmart I believe. Anyway it’s USB powered with rechargeable battery. Sits on the glare shield or can be stowed away. Picture attached.
 

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Anybody tried CLOSING your floor vents and eyeball vents at start of descent then dive to landing to try and keep the cool in the cockpit?
 
janderson said:
Ken Levins has a good plan fm another topic:
https://hoster3.commander.org/vb/for...-vent-in-panel
Click to expand...

Yep...this. I forgot about this post. I wonder where the 1" unused blast air outlet is? I have never noticed an unused one before.

I have always wondered why Commanders did not have a panel vent. Most other small GA airplanes that I have ridden in (and both of the others that I have owned) had a panel vent. Makes a lot of difference.

I will try this panel vent idea though.
 
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That exterior scoop which he connected to was an avionics cooling line that was only on the earlier models. Your 1995 won't have one.
 
Good Info but by 95 avionics shouldn't have required external cooling - did many order it?
 
there probably weren't, but I don't hv a tally of which ones did or didn't. it's on the Factory Optional Equipment list.
wouldn't an avionics shop doing all these new fancy updated panels add that?
 
janderson said:
there probably weren't, but I don't hv a tally of which ones did or didn't. it's on the Factory Optional Equipment list.
wouldn't an avionics shop doing all these new fancy updated panels add that?
Click to expand...

No- because newer Avionics are solid state and either run cooler or have their own cooling like fans built in.
 
I have plenty of airflow through my overhead eyeball vents and I still have the donut leading edge on the empennage still. The problem is at lower altitudes this outside air is obviously and noticeably hotter— especially today in central Georgia around 3pm — like an oven. The stratus that sits on my glareshield gets so hot it turns off if I don’t move it. I have modern avionics and they will sometimes flash overheating messages and that’s with the outside 1” scat hoses behind the panel aimed and blowing on them. Above 4000 ft and things are fine.
 
Interesting - I am in Arizona I have flown across the United States 15 times or so and have never had either my tablet or any of my avionics indicate Heat issues.
 
Well remember it’s a DRY heat out in AZ Joel...

So the Stratus mounted via Velcro on the Glareshield will still send messages to the yoke mounted mini iPad saying it’s about to turn off. That’s any 95 degree day under 3000’ altitude for any length of time so hopefully I get higher in altitude before it shuts down or else I have to move it back or give up the fish finder. I may have to move it’s location or put some reflective material there and maybe it will keep things cooler...black glareshield gets dang hot!

As for iPad and two Garmin 430W nav com gps units, this only happened when I left the plane on the ramp closed up and it got probably a zillion degrees inside on hot July month like now. Took off with no gps but com part still worked. Big yellow labels stating overheated...use other method for navigation until air cooled down appeared. I got a wind screen reflector I now put in when parked on ramp and I haven’t had the problem since. It’s amazing the temp difference that silver reflective sunshade material makes. I don’t remove until last thing before readied to taxi and then it’s keep the doors open time after that for the hot breeze.
 
So we flew back from Midland yesterday. Flew out around 9am when it was a pleasant 97 degrees F. Density Altitude at the time of departure was around 5,500+ ft. I fought high CHT's all the way up to my cruising altitude of 7000' MSL. I really wanted to go to 9000', but I was having trouble keeping the CHT's at 400 degrees on 3-4 cylinders. I could have made 9000, but it would have been at a painfully slow rate of climb and was just not worth it.

What do you guys see on climb out in the desert southwest in regard to CHT's? I have a 114B so I have some cooling issues that are probably not there with some of the early models that have two cowl flaps and larger cooling intakes on the nose.

Once I got to cruise I got the CHT's down to a manageable level (350-370 with a delta of 20 degrees).
 
Jaybird said:
Well remember it’s a DRY heat out in AZ Joel...

So the Stratus mounted via Velcro on the Glareshield will still send messages to the yoke mounted mini iPad saying it’s about to turn off. That’s any 95 degree day under 3000’ altitude for any length of time so hopefully I get higher in altitude before it shuts down or else I have to move it back or give up the fish finder. I may have to move it’s location or put some reflective material there and maybe it will keep things cooler...black glareshield gets dang hot!

As for iPad and two Garmin 430W nav com gps units, this only happened when I left the plane on the ramp closed up and it got probably a zillion degrees inside on hot July month like now. Took off with no gps but com part still worked. Big yellow labels stating overheated...use other method for navigation until air cooled down appeared. I got a wind screen reflector I now put in when parked on ramp and I haven’t had the problem since. It’s amazing the temp difference that silver reflective sunshade material makes. I don’t remove until last thing before readied to taxi and then it’s keep the doors open time after that for the hot breeze.
Click to expand...

Yes it is dry at home but before the world blew up I would regularly make trips to Humid country.
Not sure if the tablet cares about humidity (I know I do!!)
 
sshore said:
So we flew back from Midland yesterday. Flew out around 9am when it was a pleasant 97 degrees F. Density Altitude at the time of departure was around 5,500+ ft. I fought high CHT's all the way up to my cruising altitude of 7000' MSL. I really wanted to go to 9000', but I was having trouble keeping the CHT's at 400 degrees on 3-4 cylinders. I could have made 9000, but it would have been at a painfully slow rate of climb and was just not worth it.

What do you guys see on climb out in the desert southwest in regard to CHT's? I have a 114B so I have some cooling issues that are probably not there with some of the early models that have two cowl flaps and larger cooling intakes on the nose.

Once I got to cruise I got the CHT's down to a manageable level (350-370 with a delta of 20 degrees).
Click to expand...

Cowl flaps open - climb somewhere between VY and VX for the first 1,500 feet or so and then transition to cruise climb (25X35 95 knots or so in my plane).
Starts getting warm on the initial climb but cools slowly once I transition to cruise climb and get some more air flowing over the engine.
At around 6-7K I can close the cowl flaps.
 
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