Bud, we find ourselves crying a lot, looking into the air after our birds. The cold and wind do that to the eyes. Ha! I fly a Twist, a UCD .46 and .60, a Model Tech Magic and Extra, a Sturdy Birdy II (with a .51 SuperTigre, fast as hell), and a Big Stik .60 in the winter. (The Lanier Dart .60, plastic, is too brittle to fly in cold weather.) In one hour last month I built 4 pairs of skiis for my birds. (See above in this thread somewhere for pix of my skiis.) My favorite is the Twist, but in wind I love the Extra 300. I wish I could say the skiis affect flight, but I can see absoltuely NO difference (anti-intuitive) in most of my birds, which are, usually, overpowered. The Magic has a .45 Super Tigre. It screams. The Twist shows no affect either, with skiis, believe it or not. We do have a guy who flies a light P-51 with wheels. He uses the road next to the field to take off and land, but the plane is so light, has a .36 something on it, he can bring it in slow and plop it down on the snow if he has to, no damage.

Several of the engines prefer rich at starting (thumb over the carb), but when warm they operate just as in summer. I had to give the Magic two clicks of rich today, which is really miniscule. I have not changed my 4 strokes even one click. Amazing.

The birds PREFER cold weather. Try it. You'll discover what we did: we get more flying time in winter than summer.

Best wishes--for winter flying,

Jack