Allegiant de-ice policy/procedure question

[cargoflyr69]

I was passing thru LAS a few days back and while sitting at my gate I looked over a few gates to where an Allegiant MD-83 was parked. There was someone up on top of a folding ladder with a long pole probing the top of the wing surfaces... no biggie, looked like a tactile wing inspection for ice. BUT when the person got off the ladder and continued the walk around I looked closer and it was an FO doing their walk-around! Really? Do you guys not have a dedicated de-ice crew? Require your pilots to climb up on ladders? etc... I just kept thinking how that would be a great workers comp claim should they have slipped

 

[reepicheep]

Part of required flight crew preflight during certain conditions. Check with AA or DL I suspect it's the same.

 

[CRJ puppy]

Part of required flight crew preflight during certain conditions. Check with AA or DL I suspect it's the same.

It's not. Dedicated and trained post deice inspectors.

 

[cargoflyr69]

I am a pilot on the same type aircraft, flying them for one of the two airlines you mentioned.

We have dedicated De-ice staff. When icing conditions are prevalent the pilot makes a call to ops and the station de-ice staff gives the aircraft an inspection. Contractually there are no required preflight tasks that require "special tools" such as ladders. Not bashing anyone or union thumping... This just struck me as a genuine personal safety thing. We all know ramps with de-ice fluid, gusty winds, jet-blast, etc. is no place to be perched atop a home depot style folding ladder.

I certainly would not want to be the F/O preflighting one of your 757's.... that wing is pretty high up there

 

[tomgoodman]

Delta MD-88 F/Os used to do that preflight check if wing ice was suspected, but some "fixes" (heater blanket and fuel management changes) reduced the need for it. String tufts were attached to the top of the wing, and a ladder & wand were stored under the jetway. Cold-soaked fuel was the problem on this aircraft, sometimes causing wing ice when airport temperatures were well above freezing.

 

[Mercy98]

Exactly, used to do the same thing at USAirways on their MD-80's before they installed the blankets on the wings. Upon gate arrival maintenance would bring out ladders where the pilots could check to see if the tufts were frozen to the wing. If they were we would have to deice...any time of the year potentially...but I never had to do it in the warm seasons. Ice shedding into the engines just after rotation were the issue, and the MD-80 wing was prone to getting ice after long flights from the cold fuel (think frosty beer mug taken from freezer).

This may be urban legend, but there was supposedly a guy that got some time off for immitating a blind pilot doing a walk-around. You see, the "pogo stick" looked similar to the walking stick the blind use when walking. It's said, this guy was tapping it out in front of him while he did his ice check, in view of the terminal.

 

[temcgrew]

We have the blankets at Allegiant but have to do it anyway. The policy has changed so many times it's dizzying. Used to be only if the blankets were deffered or not installed when the temp is a certain value, now it's basically every leg. The weird part is that an FO was doing it when captains are responsible to do the walk arounds.
But I totally agree with cargoflyr, gusty ice cold winds is not the time to be on a ladder. Falling off, slipping is a liability as is smacking the leading edge of the wing with a 10 foot ladder. I think I'm gonna deligate this to the FO from now on.

 

[BEECH-SLAPPED]

Remember that wing blankets only protect to approximately 1/5 of wingspan. The presence of operating wing heater blankets doesn't relieve the requirement to not take off with frost on the upper wing surface. That's why we changed the policy, because guys were seeing the WARM light and not checking for frost elsewhere on the wing.

 

[NEDude]

Back in a previous life I worked as a fuel guy at a major airport. I know Continental used to have their pilots used to do this procedure on their MD-80s.