Clearwater, Fla.-based Pol-Air has been busy keeping EAA AirVenture attendees nice and cool with its “personal air chiller” for airplanes, which it introduced and is demonstrating at the airshow. “It’s not an air conditioner,” stressed Pol-Air President Jamie Blackstone, nor is it a whole aircraft cabin cooler. Instead, cooled air is piped through up to four hoses to provide a “zone of comfort” around the occupants. The 10-pound Pol-Air B310 is comprised of a “Gatorade-type” cooler, four hoses, drain basin and a proprietary turbine that provides 22 cfm of air pressure per hose. It holds up to 35 pounds of ice and works by drawing air through the ice, thereby drying the air in the process. The company says the B310 has a cooling endurance of about two hours. During a demo at AirVenture, the device was shown to reduce the humidity from 73 percent to 35 percent in less than a minute. Pol-Air said the cooler can be permanently kept in the baggage compartment (strapped down, of course) since melted water is discharged into an aircraft drain line or the spill-proof basin, which can be easily drained via a siphon.
According to Blackstone, “It’s not feasible to cool the entire aircraft cabin — it would take 275 pounds of ice to cool a 650-cu-ft cabin from 130 degrees to a more comfortable 70 degrees. This weight would throw off the airplane’s c.g.” The cooler comes in a 12-volt version (retail price $900) and 24-volt version ($975); both draw less than four amps. Pol-Air is offering a $150 show discount at AirVenture for the new cooler.
