Scudrunners

WTF is a "Polar Vortex"?

Sometimes, at the end of January and the beginning of February, it gets pretty cold.

According to my 87 year old father, this is [u]not[/u] a change in the climate.  I will defer
to he and Fern Villeneuve, even if both are deemed to be shit pilots by today's youngsters.

I thought it was pretty funny when President Trump tweeted that we need more climate change.

Not everyone agrees, apparently:

[quote]A recent study from Arizona State University found that a full quarter of American college students have suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the 2016 presidential election.

The study’s lead researcher, Melissa Hagan, described the impetus for her study: “I taught two classes the day after the election: one undergraduate class and one graduate class,” she explained. “In both classes, students were visibly upset, with some crying.”[/quote]

I think I prefer Fern single-pilot in the T-33 compared to the buttercups
that crash short of a 10,000 foot runway in perfect wx.

fuck this. I thought I moved away from this bullshit.

That’s a lot of wind, for that temperature.

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=9469.msg26596#msg26596 date=1548879447]
That’s a lot of wind, for that temperature.
[/quote]
Yep, dogs were going nuts last night because the wind kept picking up a bunch of snow which in turn tripped my motion sensor lights outside.

When I was younger the company I worked for operated DC-3 outside without a hangar. There was no temperature cut-off.

One morning it was -48C with some wind.

People didn't complain - they just got on with it.

Clint Eastwood is right - this is the Pussy Generation.

From a very subjective and unstationated point of view, it always seems to me that below minus 40 metal gets brittle.  Tires get square. Just kind of a critical point.
Not a big deal when you are in the air, but really hard on landing gear, wheel bearings and similar parts when it under stress from taxiing or landing.

Polar fucking vortex and wind chill are just inventions of marketing idiots to sensationalize the wx - I actually was sitting at coffee yesterday and yes we are -40 again this morning and I was floored at the number of people who think wind chill is an actual temperature. Your body will drop to that temperature if exposed -- haha - I told him wind chill discomfort stopped at ambient and you don't care anyway because you are dead.

Speaking of wx networks, have you ever stopped to consider a TV station broadcasting on 10% programming and 90% advertising, a fucking cash cow and what gets me people are stupid enough to watch them.

Cold has the advantage to heat. You can always dress for the cold (which 98% of people don't do) and when it's hot you can only take so many cloths off.  >:D

I miss Percy and his chalk

It even spills over to aviation. I as guys if they have looked at the surface analysis and no one ever opens that up. They all gravitate to the graphical forecasts that seem to be dictated by provincial borders.  That always confused me. No one seems to check and compare METARS to TAFFS to see if the forecast is as advertised either, yet it takes people 45 minutes to flight plan for a 1 hour trip. Damn

[quote]-48C[/quote]

You can preheat, but you have to be thinking about what temperature
your oil cooler is going to see, in flight.  If it's below the "pour point"
or congeal temperature of the oil, you're going to have a bad day.

Straight grade oils congealed badly.  Used to be a problem in prop
hubs, too.  Not so much any more, with the multi-grade, but even it
has a cutoff of -40C.

And as TK points out, stuff gets brittle when it gets cold.  Weird
stuff starts to break.  As long as you're not surprised by it, I guess
it's just a cost of doing business.

I'm suspicious of how much low-temperature testing has actually
been done.  Remember the problem with the 777 fuel heaters?
That was really nasty.  And how about the 737 rudder actuators?
A lot of people died before that was figured out.

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=9469.msg26601#msg26601 date=1548946221]
Straight grade oils congealed badly.
[/quote]
No kidding.  Tried to start my old car a couple weeks ago and could just about stand on the crank handle.  That's what I get for switching to SAE30 on my last oil change.

I once did a flight to a mine site  N of Yellowknife. DC-3 had an OAT guage that had the sensor poking outside the fuselage.

On shutdown I looked at it - it went to -45C then a space then the bottom stop. The needle was sitting on the stop. Going outside I felt the rubber on the soles of my Kamiks getting stiff. Never had that happen before or since.

No idea how cold it was - we unloaded and left asap.

Having experienced -48C and +48C - I'll take hot over cold.


The DC-3 just keeps running no matter what the temperature is. Lot more leaks in the extreme cold. The only time I've had oil cooler problems on the DC-3 was when the Captain took off with the oil temperature below 40C.