Small airport cold-weather starting - Tanis good enough?

MV,

Suggestion: go to AVweb (www.avweb.com) click on "columns" and then
on "The Pilot's Lounge", scroll down to the piece on cold weather
operations. In a nutshell, if you can run an extension cord to the
airplane and put a blanket or sleeping bag over the cowl, you should
be fine. Most cold weather FBOs will help you if you bring at least
100 feet of extension cord. Allow several hours for the Tanis system
to heat things up and use bungees or rope to hold the sleeping bag in
place on the cowling and find something to plug the cooling intakes.
If possible, because you have an extension cord running to the
airplane, set up some sort of heater in the cabin (even a drop cord
lightbulb helps and something to heat the battery so it will provide
some cranking power. I've used a long extension cord with a three
prong plug so that I can plug in the Tanis, a light bulb heater in the
cabin (your gyros aren't necessarily accurate if the cabin temp is
under 40 degress F, and a lightbulb heater at the battery and master
switch solenoid area.

If you want a very good book on cold weather ops, get Fred Potts' book
on bush flying available at www.fepco.com.

All the best,
Rick

(Mitchel Gossman) wrote in message . com...
OK, so you fly your 4-cylinder Lycoming to a small airport in cold
weather, and if your plane is like mine (Archer O-360), starting in
frigid weather without preheat or an hour in a warm hangar is nearly
impossible. I haven't ever flown to an airport where there was not an
FBO with a hangar or preheat to bail me out, but now I need to.

Question: Is it enough to wrap the blanket around the cowl and plug in
the Tanis even though the plane is sitting outside with the cold wind?
How often do airports offer this?

MV Gossman