Cold Operation's?
Hi Rotorheads,
Last year I was in Finnish Lapland, the indicated day time air temp was fluctuating between -15 to -27 degrees of frost, there seemed little free moisture, but in the rays of the sun you could see a constant falling of crystals of very fine ice(which were so small that you could not feel them), I was amazed to come across a twin Squirril in a clearing and a guy clearing the frost of the inside screen, so with my son, I stood and watched as he(the pilot) cranked this machine into life, the thing that puzzeled me was the speed at which he accomplished all this and then took off, according to my watch it was just three and a half minutes from starting to crank, he lifted to about 150ft(towering type lift) and then flew of with what looked like a transistion from a low power take of, but remained at this low level. It turned out to be the state mapping department, who were mapping out the local terrain( we were about 200 miles inside the Artic Circle).
Could any of you cold flyers explain, what are the problems with flights in very cold area's and does low flying in such climates offer any advantage(apart from staying out of much colder air at higher altitude's) I also saw the Finnish Army Huey types(2 blades) flying at this sort of height also.