Frost on wings?

[MauleSkinner]

91.527 allows you to polish frost as well...on your large or turbine powered multiengine 172

Check out the NTSB Advisory that came out in the aftermath of the Challenger crash in Montrose last winter at http://www.ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2004/041229.htm

Fly safe!

David

 

[snowbear]

Your CFI sounds well intentioned, but attempting to fly with anything on the wings or lifting body of an aircraft has killed far to many folks.

Some seem to advocate that you become a test pilot by polishing the surface then "adding a few knots to your rotation speed". Call any manufacturer in the world and ask them how much speed you add for ice and they will laugh you off the phone line. They did not test for, nor do they advocate taking off with anything other than a clean wing. Some will specifically allow ice on the fuel tanks (lower wing surface only) but this is generally on very powerful airplanes, the let is never for a lifting surface and is talked about at length in the aircraft operating maunual. Ice is deceptively heavy. If you polish the surface do you have any idea what the residual ice weighs? Are you sure you got it off the hinges and moving surfaces? How about the top of a T tailed airplane? Can you even see whats up there? Even if polished to a mirror like shine the ice surface will have thousands of tiny imperfections in it that has the capability to hamper or destroy lift. You may leave ground effect at your own peril.

Look to Canada, or any of the Northern European countries. All have a "clean wing" regulation. They have great experience with winter weather conditions and they all realized a long time ago that ice on wings is bad.

Please take the time to clean your airplane. The life you save may be your own.

 

[Almerick07]

Find a new CFI....when you polish that frost do you know exactly how much it weighs or how much surface area it adds, until you know those you cant know how much to increase your rotation speed by. If this is standard operating procedure for this guy who knows what else he does...intentionally or not.

 

[flydrummer]

I haven't started my training yet but something like that seems to be a common sense thing. Even though the FAR's allow you to polish the ice why would you want to take even the slightest of chances? If it were me I think I'd have to re-evaluate my CFI before doing any more training with him.

 

[English]

Polishing the ice....great! Now I have more duties I can assign to my copilot, along with polishing the wings, nacelles, etc.

J/K G!

 

[Almerick07]

It is safe only if immediately after polishing the wings you polish your shoes too.

 

[pilothouston123]

Old rule... Polish frost smooth
New rule... No frost on wings

hmmmm makes sence to me... rather be on the ground cleaning ice off wings than in the air wishing i would have cleand off wings

 

[MauleSkinner]

rather be on the ground cleaning ice off wings than in the air wishing i would have cleand off wings

You obviously haven't been to some of the places I have

 

[9GClub]

Empennage: CHECK
Wheel chocks: REMOVE
Wing frost: POLISH SMOOTH
Fuel selector: SCREW IT
ELT: ON/TRANSMIT

 

[Singlecoil]

Well, half of the posters on here would have been fired at some of the places I have worked. The ops manual says "polished smooth" and so do the regs. You run in and say you can't fly today because you can't remove the frost (no hangar, no de-ice available). You are fired.

This technique is SOP for flying in western Alaska.

The original question was about a general aviation trainer, not a friggin' CL-65. Polish it and go fly.