Icing questions?

[TurboS7]

Keep the power up and fly fast, don't climb fast otherwise you will subject yourself to icing on the lower middle wing or worse yet belly ice. If you are in freeezing rain climb the warm area of weather is just a couple of thousand feet above.

 

[Drifter]

Take a look at your Outside Air Temperature guage while in IMC. From my experience ice really packs on from around the 10 - 25 degree range. I try to avoid flight in that range myself because who needs the weight and the drag. If you have to descend through those temps in the clouds, do it quickly and try not to hang out the gear and flaps at that time if you can avoid it.

 

[mckpickle]

Keep the power up and fly fast, don't climb fast otherwise you will subject yourself to icing on the lower middle wing or worse yet belly ice. If you are in freeezing rain climb the warm area of weather is just a couple of thousand feet above.

Just to clarrify, dont climb at a high deck angle. climb at a higher airspeed if you can. The auto pilot thing is real important. It will hide SO much. You can feel the plane if you dont have the AP on. Flying the ATR is fine in ICE now but you have to be carefull like any other plane. Got into some bad stuff this winter and had about 3 inches on board. The plane will fly but you got to get out of it if its accumulating that quick. And with that quick of accumulation your not going to be able to climb so plan on going down. Also, beware the northeast corner of a front. Usually the worst icing. And watch for a "bridge of ice" This is anyplace that ice builds and looks like a small snowbank. IE unheated portoin of windows, behind boots, window frames ect. Good luck and keep your speed up.

 

[V-1]

JetPilot500 has great advice to offer. I agree with all of it, except I have to qualify one statement. Blowing the boots often is great if you're in a turbine-powered aircraft. If you're in a piston aircraft, be careful about using them too much. The boots usually get their inflation pressure from the vacuum/pressure pumps, whichever the aircraft is equipped with. The impeller vanes in these pumps are made of a fragile material. Heavy, repeated applications of deicing boots will cause premature failure. Hopefully you're in a twin and you have a second one. This isn't a consideration in turbine-powered aircraft.

JP500 has offered the best advice of all - get out of it if at all possible. While some may argue the point, I always tried to climb as high as possible. If I couldn't get out of it, at least I had extra altitude to work with.

If you ever have a mechanic patch a boot, make sure they evacuate any water from the system. Otherwise you'll pull the airplane from the warm hangar, check the boots during run-up and find they work properly. Ten minutes later when you need them they mysteriously won't work. Water in the system will freeze rendering the boots useless.

Flying in Michigan in the winter, the outside air temperature gauge was checked in my scan as often as the airspeed indicator during initial climbs. Information is key to operating successfully in serious icing conditions. Be sure to help everyone else out by passing along pilot reports of cloud tops/icing encounters.

A trick I learned while flying freight up North was to ask the weather briefer what altitudes he/she had wind readouts from doppler radar. Our FSS had radar equipment that could tell the actual winds aloft if there was moisture present. Guess what? If they didn't have any data above say 5000 feet that meant the cloud tops were at or below 5000 feet in the area of the radar site. This trick was extremely accurate at pinpointing the tops of the clouds and showing how layered the weather was.

Watch out for air temperatures between 0 and about -8 degrees Celsius. That's usually when you get the worst icing.

Get high, and stay high as long as possible, unless you noticed a warmer (above freezing) layer lower. Air Traffic Control knows what you're up against and will work with you.

Fly Safely,
V-1

 

[avbug]

Stay out of ice. Ice is bad.

Don't eat yellow snow.

If you're landing on ice, be prepared to take it around, and keep the airplane's long axis strictly in line with the gracker on the ground.

If your're parking on ice after taxiing with skis, block up the skiis. Otherwise, the heat generated from friction will generate enough tomelt the ice, and freeze it into the ground.

Tiedown ropes make good saws for removing snow and accumulations on the tops fo the wings. Always carry a broom or other similiar object for snow removal.

Avoid ice.

 

[SDdriver]

Hey thanks for all the responses, Unfortunantly Avbug I won't be able to stay out of it. I will be forced to fly in it unless, like I said before, it is freezing rain. All of your advice has been great, I do want to know from some people that have done it before, what is landing on a snow covered or icy runway like? I know to use reverse and not brakes and to use differential (SP?) reverse to control your heading, but what is it like? Any advice for that specificly?

Fortunantly I am flying a turbine aircraft with good de-ice equip so that will help I am sure.
I have also heard from most people that the Shorts can haul a big load of ice if needed. It is a really stable platform, but there are a lot of unprotected areas of the aircraft that don't have de-ice boots or hot surfaces.

One last question, if you are flying at say 8000ft and start picking up ice, but the boots are working to break it off, would you climb out of it anyway? Also is the rule to always climb if you are getting ice? I know there could be warmer air below, but flying at the altitudes we do there is not a whole lot of room below to go down. So if it will climb, should you always try to climb out of it?

Thanks again.

SD

 

[avbug]

SD,

If you're getting ice, regardless of your de-ice or anti icing capabilities, do something to get out of it if you can. Climb or descend. If you can't descend to warmer air, then climb to get altitiude to deal with your problem, or to climb out of the icing layer if you are able.

The airplane may be able to handle the present rate of icing. However, you may lose that deice capability. If you're in it at the time, what was once an annoyance or no big deal, may suddenly turn into a really big deal.

The loss of a blanket or boot, or the failure of a bleed valve may nor may not be noticable until the indications of aerodynamic difficulty become manifest. We're all so accustomed to relying on idiot lights and agreement/disagreement lights to tell us that everything is working. If we can't see it on the ammeter or the annunciator panel, it must be okay. However, this isn't always the case, and it's too late to figure that out when in the ice.

Icing can get bad fast. I had an experience in a Twin Commander once that put the fear of God and Ice into me in short order. It involved a rapid ice accumulation that put an inch of ice on in a minute, and caused an initial 50 knot speed loss. In less than a minute and a half we were through blue line and then slower, and descending, and unable to maintain MEA. We were in mountainous terrain in instrument conditions. Ice from the props sounded like a 12 gage being continuously fired behind our ears, and it did significant structural damage to the airplane.

The significant part of that experience was that the aircraft on the route ahead of us didn't get it, nor did the trailing aircraft. We flew through an area which was small geographically, that was pushing some warm, moist, saturated air upslope rapidly. It cooled rapidly, and it occured right where we were. The chief pilot for that operation was in the right seat, and I was flying. I had been present only a short time previously when he had declared to a class of new-hires that the Twin Commander can carry any amount of ice, and only lose 15 knots.

Be really careful when people tell you an airframe can carry a lot of ice, without trouble.

Some years ago I was eastbound in a large four engine airplane. We were picking up some ice, but it didn't seem to be a big deal; the usual 1/4" or trace that we would see in the winter in the clouds. In a short time period, it built such that large 6" horns were sticking off the leading edge and prop spinners, and we began to get a very pronounced aileron "snatch." I immediately descended and notified ATC, and onl 2,000 to 3,000 below the icing layer, we shed most of it.

Had we been unable to descend for whatever reason (we were fortunate enough to be over low, flat terrain), I would have elected to climb. Even if I was unable to get out of the ice, the altitude might buy time in the event of a problem. The point there is that if all the options aren't available, pick the best of what you have left and work with that.

Be cautious of systems failures or issues such as a blown boot, or blown cell. You can have a single cell in a multi cell boot or blanket that fails, and this can cause some ice bridging issues...even in nice, modern equipment.

The FAA has pushed more recently for continuous use of boots at the first sign of icing, and has even published a paper trying to tell us that "ice bridging" is more myth than reality. I disagree strongly, even with more modern boot systems that pulse at higher rates and frequencies, or that operate at higher pressures. Additionally, anybody who has ever popped a boot, only to have the boot pop or burst, comes to realise staying in ice and relying on deice capability is a fools errand.

Icing conditions exist that can take down the most capable of aircraft. Embedded cells or orographic lifting action, or any convective activity or mountain activity, can result in severe ice in very light or mild conditions. I'm sure that many of us have had our scares. We're coming into icing weather again here shortly. At the higher altitudes, it's a year-round issue. It's a good time to begin thinking seriously about ice once more.

Remember that de-ice and anti-ice equipment isn't really for flight into or through known icing conditions. It may be labled that way for certification, but really it's for getting out of ice.

Ice bad. Very bad. Except maybe in a slurpee. The coke ones, not the cherry ones, that leave you looking like you wore closet lipstick or something. Ice bad. Very bad. Snowcones good. Except in the winter when give bad headache and chills. Then ice very bad.

 

[SDdriver]

Thanks AvBug, I just ordered a book and the NASA video on icing. I am going to educate myself thoroughly before this winter, and before I ever get myself into the situation. To all that wrote, thanks for helping out a fellow pilot with all of your advice.

Fly safe and Tailwinds,

SD

 

[Checks]

I almost always climb, you can always go back down.

I also never stay in icing more than 10 seconds because I dont want to get deiced at my destination so I pretend like I dont have any deice equipment.

Someone mentioned temps...0 thru minus 4 is the worst. Tops of clouds are also horrible. The more airspeed you have the better the boots will blow off the ice so sometimes I will descend at a slightly faster rate than normal to get some extra airspeed then blow the boots.

Good Luck

 

[mckpickle]

I understand, sometimes you CANT get out of it. What I watch is the airspeed. If it is decaying more than a few knots every 5-10 minutes you need to execute your escape plan( because you already thought of one). Sometimes you just cant get out and have to deal with it. Keep the auto pilot off and feel for any type of buffet, roll or pitch. My turbo prop just cant climb out sometimes so always remember what alltitude you got ice and what type in case you have to go back down. While climbing might be the best sometimes you pick up SO much in the climb you wont get out.

As far as landing on icy runways.

Ever ride a tricycle on a frozen pond. That can be what its like. Remember, one of the hard parts is breaking out a mins durring a snowstorm. Its like nothing youve seen before. EVERYTHING is white, the ground, sky, runway markings are covered. If your lucky you might see some lights but not much else. Watch the crosswind and fly it until it stops. I mean fly it like an airplane until the airplane comes to a complete stop. Where people get in trouble is when they go from flying to steering the nosewheel. Never turn if you think it would make the plane "lean". Carefull how much reverse you use as it can go from low to NO vis.

Overall very challenging but with the proper respect you will walk away a better and more confident pilot