YAK-52 Oil heater

[yakmadrid]

Hi everyone,
I am a partner of an association of Yak-52 in Madrid, Spain. I am looking for a solution to pre-heat the oil before starting (it gets cold here in the winter), any ideas?
Thank you for your help.

[S-Works]

cold in Madrid? You are pulling our leg?

The Yak comes from the just about the coldest place on earth, way beyond the coldest harshest madrid winter.......

[yakmadrid]

Thank you for your reply, useless though...

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

We operated a Yak 52 for a few years in the north of UK. The aeroplane lived outside, so got well frozen on cold winter nights.

We never felt the need for oil pre-heating - it just took a while to warm up after start.

In the USSR, they had an oil-dilution system on the Vendeneyev otherwise the oil would have been almost solid on a Soviet winter morning.

I don't think you'll have a problem in Madrid - just start it, warm it, and go flying!

[A and C]

I don't think that the Brits here have any idea how cold Madrid gets in the winter!

As for heating the engine I think that I would buy a cheap propane "space heater" and some trunking and fabricate a heater that blows hot air into the engine bay from below.

You can get from the USA custom made engine heaters and with the Euro/$ rate that might be the way to go.

[eharding]

Even on frosty mornings in the UK it can take a significant time to get the oil up to temperature. The old Soviet illustrated POH seems to imply that all of the pre-flight overheads of operating the Yak-52 - pulling the prop through and so on - are solved by the diligent ground crew, finished off with a crisp salute to the sky-god in the cockpit. I've explained this on repeated occasions to the donglers at White Waltham, who, being a cheerfully boistrous lot, have explained on repeated occasions where I can stuff the Soviet illustrated POH.

On a practical note, do you have an oil cooler blanking plate fitted? Russian Engineering at White Waltham might be able to source one if not.

[micromalc]

oily yak

try contacting one of the dealers eg yak.uk or russianaeros, they should be able to help, if not, do what the russians do and use some sort of oil-dilution.

[Lister Noble]

Most high performance racing car engines have oil heaters to minimise wear and engine stress on start up.
You can buy a sort of immersion heater for cars and lorries which pre-heats the oil in the sump.
I imagine this would not be a standard mod for aircraft so do not know the "legal "aspect of it.

I imagine there are summer and winter oils available for aircraft?

Lister

[Glenforsa Flyer]

Fit blanking plate in oil cooler (gaffa tape works)
Run engine for five minutes (after pulling through nine blades)
Shut down, drink coffee, clean windscreen etc.
Start up, all good, go fly.

GF

[Zulu Alpha]

Have you looked at the aircraft spruce website. They have a number of mains powered oil sump heaters. These are stick on electrical heaters which will warm the oil. For Lycomings they stick on the sump, but I think that Yaks have a dry sump with an oil tank so the heater will need to be stuck on the oil tank. I'm sure there are websites.

Good idea to use a sump heater, it saves using all that avgas to run the engine up to temperature before takeoff.

One thing to remember is not to use the oil heater all the time. Aparently, if you do, the moisture/acids evaporate and condense elsewhere in the engine and do more damage than being left in the cold oil.

So use a remote controlled switch to turn the heater on 1 hr or so before flying.

[SkyHawk-N]

I've got a Tanis heater on my Lycoming (Installations), shame they don't make them for Yak radials.

[yakmadrid]

Thanks

Thanks for the tips guys. Of course the soviets did operate this airplane at extemely low temps. but they did not care about the cost of a new engine. It looks like the pads that attach to the outside of the oil tank is the best solution to warm the oil and extend the life of the engine.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Don't know about Spain, but in UK there's no point trying to mollycoddle a Vendeneyef to extend its life (other than avoiding all possibilty of hydraulic lock). The engine is subject to a ludicrously short life before it has to be scrapped.

The one we had that was 'out of hours' and therefore scrap we stripped down out of interest. There was NO evidence of ANY wear at all. The machining marks were still pin-sharp on the cylinder bores.

SSD

[Pilot-H]

When we went here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZQrAiAgJYY

...we took these: http://www.tacaviation.com/models.htm

[Big Pistons Forever]

We use 20W60 Radial engine multigrade oil in our CJ6A. I found the oil warms up much faster than my buddy who uses 100 single grade.

[yakker]

We put a fish tank heater in the oil tank, place electric heaters in the cowling, and then fit sponge fill-ins to the cowling to keep the heat in. Works for us.