PIREP: AC in a 1970 Mooney….

Flying around this area is great, however sometimes when you fly from La Aurora to the coast or to Rio Dulce or to Peten, the cockpit can become very HOT! ON many occasions I feel after landing that the only place I want to go is to take a nice shower to become a person again… (my wife agrees…).
Of course to install an AC in our birds is not only very expensive, but in most cases totally unviable. So I have been looking around trying to find a solution to this issue. That is how I ran into Phil and his icebox. I was very skeptical…is this really going to work…

http://switchboxcontrol.com/icebox/

So after reading reviews and talking to Phil, I decided to try it out. I ordered the unit with 10 icepacks and I flew on Tuesday from MGGT to MNMG Flight took about 2.6 hours in my M20C, those winds they always blow from the wrong side… I took the opportunity to try out the unit. I will do a full write up of the flight soon.

So, I froze the icepacks and took them yesterday at 5 AM to the airport, loaded the unit and added one gallon of water (could not get cold water!, just ambient). I used the unit one hour after after take off. It worked great. I turned it on and then off, depending on the temperature in the cockpit. I landed in Managua and the temperature was about 100 degrees outside. It has HOT. But the Icebox was working nicely and inside it was nice… interesting note: no fogging… The official who met me after I stopped asked me even if I had AC.

I did not take the icepacks out of the cooler… It would have been too complicated to explain to the Sandinistas why I wanted to carry icepacks through customs and back. So I left them in the plane. This morning before I left for Guatemala, I opened the box thinking that I would find melted icepacks, but NO!!! They were still 30% frozen, so i was able to use the unit during take off. However, then turbulence moved some stuff in the baggage compartment and the connector broke… and I lost the privilege of having some nice fresh air coming out of the box…So please Phil, help us by may be building a connector that does not stick out so much…

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One Response to PIREP: AC in a 1970 Mooney….

  1. Great to read your PIREP! We have shipped the IceBox to international pilots in Israel, South Africa, Australia and others.. but you are our first in Central America!

    Post some photos when you can, it would be nice to see the IceBox in your Mooney, in action!

    Phillip

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