I think it not only depends on airspeed and OAT but also whether the sun is shinning on the iced portion of the wing. Also how much ice accumulated and if it is clear smooth ice as opposed to mixed ice which disrupts the airflow more. Mixed will sublimate faster in my opinion all things being equal.
You are lucky, with so much Ice I loose 10 Knots TAS, no fun.
It’s a big effect but in piston GA we are always on the perf limit (except when descending) so have little choice over the speed.
I would expect the airflow (the TAS, not IAS?) to have a big effect because any sort of “evaporation” should go according to the partial pressure of the participating substance(s). And airflow will keep removing the stuff which has just managed to escape, thus lowering the partial pressure at the boundary. Or at least that would seem logical. But maybe sublimation is a very different process to evaporation which runs pretty directly on the partial pressure i.e. water will not evaporate into air with a 100% RH (which should incidentally mean that a human will eventually die in air of +37C or warmer with a 100% RH).
This nasty looking buildup dropped the speed maybe 5kt. This was c. FL150, and most of it was collected around -5C in a minute or two – exactly as one would expect
That’s a massive effect.
I seem to recall it is driven by IAS, temperature, humidity and wing shape.
Snow sublimates a lot faster when it is exposed to wind.
There’s a research paper on it: http://arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-science/objects/issw-1992-011-017.pdf
I would say that IAS would have an affect on the sublimation rate?
[ local copy added – Peter ]
My guess: the airspeed loss is less on the fat TB wing than on the faster/thinner Cirrus Wing. Agree?
Airspeed loss was below what I would notice given the loss due to altitude… maybe a few kt?
Temperature is definitely not what prevents ice form subliming so I join Peter in wondering: what does influence it? Humidity?
I had some ice too on the flight back from Dresden, in FL 120. It was really not much, .. immediately lost 10 KTAS.
