I guess it needs to be installed such that your eyes can just see out through it, onto where the runway would appear.
I have seen many and they always look really messy.
They are not as good as a heated windshield, obviously, but also not as expensive (ok, well, for an original Malibu if your hotplate needs replacement and you are lucky enough to find one it’s almost as expensive as moving to heated windshield – but that is because these specific parts have not been manufactured for decades).
As a compromise it is actually not that bad – for the typical SEP pilot there are only very limited occasions anyways there you have to land with ice still covering the windshield. Only real downside is that the angle of view is extremely limited – therefore if you WCA on the approach gets too high, you only see the runway very late – LOWS is one of the examples where this might happen…
Nowadays I see very few of these installed – same as I see very few piston twins flying… it’s been a long term trend for many years, it seems. The low response confirms that. Perhaps the hard core flyers installed the full left heated window, but someone who did that on a 421C told me it cost 20k+.
Peter wrote:
Perhaps the hard core flyers installed the full left heated window, but someone who did that on a 421C told me it cost 20k+.
Same ballpark for the Malibu – it’s just that a replacement part for the hotplate is not much cheaper so if you want to remain legal in icing conditions there is little alternative…
<shrug> the plane I fly the most (Cessna P210) has one, was there when it was bought. The “full height” version. It works, somewhat, meaning that the hot-plate covered area definitely deices far faster than the rest of the window. I wouldn’t say it keeps up with FZRA or flying into a cloud of supercooled droplets.
lionel wrote:
I wouldn’t say it keeps up with FZRA or flying into a cloud of supercooled droplets.
The other parts of the airframe deicing in an SEP are very likely not to keep up with that as well…
lionel wrote:
wouldn’t say it keeps up with FZRA
The few flights we have cancelled in the Citation have been due to freezing rain; we wouldn’t go into that even with all the bleed air anti ice working perfectly
Reading this I actually see a market for a TKS window deice in the PA46. The replacement window is so crazy expensive and it is used in anger maybe once a year or less. So assuming this thing lasts 15 years (probably less) and costs at least 30k that is 2k for a free window each application. A “low tech” TKS STC for maybe 10k might be a good solution and last for decades…
You don’t need a “window”. You just need a well designed spray bar.
I have been in icing of ~1cm per minute and the front window never got even a trace of ice on it, and that was with just the prop TKS which is a fine mist coming off the prop. Exactly what I had before the full TKS, when I had the prop-only TKS system. Never got any ice on the window.
The spray bar which comes with the full TKS system, push button operated, pumps out a gallon a second (only kidding, but you don’t want to be standing even 5m behind the plane when somebody presses that button on the ground 
) and has never been needed. Actually a couple of the holes are blocked (and always were) but I have never used it for real. One has to use it periodically otherwise the dedicated pump seizes up.
If you did not have an electrically heated prop, I’d say develop a TKS prop STC. But if you have, just a clever spray arrangement would work fine. Fluid use is very low; I used up a tank (2 litres) per year.
