A well-designed engine cover can help to ensure your entire engine compartment is toasty warm on the most frigid winter days. [Credit: Jason McDowell]
Key Takeaways:
The author's airplane failed to start on a frigid day, missing a flying adventure and prompting him to seek a more effective engine warming solution for winter operations.
He invested in a custom-fitted, insulated engine cover from Bruce's Custom Covers, which required detailed measurements and offered customization options like access flaps for the heater plug.
The cover is praised for its robust quality, tailor-made fit, and significant improvement in retaining engine heat, making warm-ups faster and more reliable for cold-weather flying, despite minor suggestions for fitment around exhaust and oil drip solutions.
In the three and a half years I’ve owned my airplane, there has been only one occasion when it refused to start.
It was a particularly frigid Sunday morning in Wisconsin, and, not expecting to fly that day, I hadn’t plugged my engine heater in the night before. This would prove to ruin what would have been a truly epic flying adventure.
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Jason McDowell is a private pilot and Cessna 170 owner based in Madison, Wisconsin. He enjoys researching obscure aviation history and serves as a judge for the National Intercollegiate Flying Association. He can be found on Instagram as @cessnateur.
