Short quick CRJ question

[acaTerry]

Quick one: Is there any ice protection on the CRJ tailplane? I've been told yes and no. Who's right?

 

[ILS8L]

nope, wings and cowls, windows and probes ... that's all

 

[acaTerry]

Gee. I wonder how a tailplane stall (ice induced) is avoided?

 

[Rottweiller]

And don't let anyone tell you the 'bullet' on the N1 fan is heated by engine oil either

 

[Rottweiller]

Gee. I wonder how a tailplane stall (ice induced) is avoided?

Basically the surface is thin enough (leading edge) that ice has a great difficulty in sticking. Boeing did flight tests years a go with a 727 by securing large pieces of wood (very high tech) on the horizontal stab and vert stab to see what effect ice accumulation would have. The result nothing to write home about so bleed air not required on those surfaces. You will be surprised at how few aircraft these surfaces anti-iced.

 

[bailout]

No, there is not. Bombardier says it doesn't need it. I have been is some serious icing with it, where there was over 2" built up on the static wicks, the nose cone, winglets, etc, but the tail had some only on the center portion at the top of the vertical stab.

 

[EOpilot]

Just last week we flew through some moderate icing coming into Chicago. In my postflight I noticed about a quarter inch on the nose, the winglets, the wing roots, the entire height of the vertical stabilizer and the entire length of the horizontal stabilizer.

When Bombardier decided not to heat the tail, it wasn't because ice doesn't adhere.

Not too bothered by it, though. The 727 didn't heat the tail either.

 

[JJJ]

nope, wings and cowls, windows and probes ... that's all

don't forget the drain masts

 

[CesnaCaptn]

I have seen ice

I flew a CRJ into KCOS last winter and to my surprise there was over an inch caked onto the horizonal stab. I discussed this with some pilots, and what was concluded was that even with a great deal of ice, the horizontal stab does its job.

 

[DoinTime]

The great big head tells us that even when the tail is carrying a 'significant' amount of ice it does not make enough of an aerodynamic difference to justify adding the ice protection. I had heard that prototypes of the Challenger had bleed air plumbing installed in the tail but flight testing proved it wasn't needed. Besides....they would have put on bigger engines just to provide enough bleed air to heat the wings, cowls, and tail.