Hello,
Last week-end I went for a flight in the end of the morning and the plane was outside with a little ice as you can see on the picture.
I am wondering if this very light ice could adversely impact the flight characteristics in a significant way or not.
By lack of experience I decided to remove it before the flight but I am wondering if it was overkill or not.
Anyway better safe than sorry… but your views on this is more than welcome.
jfw wrote:
Anyway better safe than sorry… but your views on this is more than welcome.
I am getting myself onto thin ice by writing this on a worldwide visible public forum (disclaimer: do what I write at your own risk) … but honestly: Compared to those rivets in your picture, a fraction of a millimetre of frost (which is what can be seen here) can hardly have much effect. Of course the surface properties of your wing are slightly altered (maybe even to the better) but since most of that frost accumulation is way behind the leading edge in an area where the boundary layer is turbulent anyway I wouldn’t expect any noticeable effect. On a polished laminar wing this is different though!
If I were to fly that aeroplane I would remove the frost from the control surfaces (as you do in the picture) and make sure that the hinges are clear of any ice. And don’t worry otherwise. One single cloud can put ten times that amount of ice on your wing – in areas where it really hurts – and your aircraft will still fly happily.
While I don’t disagree with what_next’s assesment of the probable impact, I am a coward in that respect and without being an aero engineer or test pilot do remove frost from the top surface of the wing.
I personally would (and have) removed that little ice from the top of the wing. I don’t find that it takes long on GA types and its peace of mind.
For reference, on a 737-800 (and maybe other variants) you can have a painted box on the top of the wing and as long as the frost is on top of the wing and any frost on the bottom of the wing is less than 3mm thick (with a couple of other limitations) then Boeing deem that to have negligible performance effects and dispatch is allowed without any penalties. This is used for cold soaked fuel frost relief.
Pirho wrote:
For reference, on a 737-800 (and maybe other variants) you can have a painted box on the top of the wing
Can you explain this please?
jfw wrote:
I am wondering if this very light ice could adversely impact the flight characteristics in a significant way or not.
By lack of experience I decided to remove it before the flight but I am wondering if it was overkill or not.
Anyway better safe than sorry… but your views on this is more than welcome.
I would remove even this amount of ice from the leading edges of the wings and stabiliser / fin. I wouldn’t bother about the rest of the surfaces.
Hello !
By those cold temps, I wonder what is the latest about deicing on the ground.
With garden sprayer, do you finally use plain TKS, TKS + water (50/50), or any other mix ?
I am considering such a solution now, as I’m losing too much time, waiting for melting.
PetitCessnaVoyageur wrote:
Do you all consider that the aircraft should be perfectly free of ice?
Definitely free of ice. For what you posted you need less than 1 l of TKS fluid to get rid all of it.
I’m not sure that fluid for the TKS system is an economic way of de-icing an airframe.
Would it not be better to use a Kilfrost type 1 ground de-ice fluid ?
20 litre containers of Aero-Sense Type1 Fluid are available online and cost around €120 including VAT delivered to the U.K. And you have some guidelines for holdover time as well for generic Type 1 fluids (pages 8-10):
[ local copy ]
