Heads up! Winter is here!

The things I want to show you this time are something that was planned for November 2015. Nevertheless, at that time we were busy working on the F33A so we decided to postpone it until the new year.
The update carrying the new stuff was planned for november because in the northern hemisphere (were SimCoders.com has got its headquarters :-)) winter was coming, and with the winter it comes the cold weather!

So, yes…I’m very happy to introduce to you the…

REP’s Preheating and Winterization Kit

When operating in cold weather, it’s better to not turn on the engine if it has not been warmed up before. The IO-520 may not even turn on when the temperature is below 3-4 °C (37-39 °F).
If you manage to make it start, you may damage it. The CHT would rise too much is a short period of time. Nevertheless, the oil would be too thick to lubricate the engine.

So, the first thing to do is to go into the hangar window and engage the engine preheater. The preheater is basically an electric heater that blows warm air inside the engine cowl using a flexible pipe fitted (often) into the cowl flaps port.

Once engaged, the CHT and the oil temperature will slowly raise to an acceptable level for a startup.

It keeps from 30 minutes to an hour to warm up the engine.
You may keep the sim open for the entire warmup period or choose to close X-Plane, watch a movie and then return to your PC. Why? Because the Reality Expansion Pack keeps working under the hood to warm up the engine while your PC is off.
If you don’t like to wait and just want to keep flying, there will be a “Cheat me” button in the hangar that will instantly warmup the engine. 😉

Once the engine is warm, do not switch off the preheater until you finished your walkaround. The engine would otherwise cool down quickly and another warmup run may be required before startup.

After startup, some places are so cold that you are not able to reach the CHT’s green arc. What should you do then?
Just open the hangar window and enable the winterization kit!

The winterization kit is a simple “mask” put in front of the engine cowl. It prevents part of the cold air to be sucked inside the engine compartment. This will keep the engine warm enough during flight.
Here’s a before/after comparison of the winterization kit.

When will you get it? Will it be available for both the F33A and the C210?

The preheater and the winterization kit will be provided to our beta testers the next weekend, then we will need one or two weeks to test it deeply.
After the beta test period the update will be available to all our current customers for free. It will be compatible with both the C210 and the F33A…..and yes, the red thing in the screenshots is the V35B!