Seasons thoughts

[Spanners]

Hi all.

We are getting to the time of year when we need to think slightly differently about our flying.

With snow on the upper parts of the Snodonia range, and with lots of low-level cloud around, we need to consider icing.

Not carb icing which can happen any time of the year, but airframe icing.

So, can you give me some idea about what we need to look at on the TAF's and METAR's for information regarding icing?

Does it only affect metal aircraft? Are 'plastic' types like the Cirrus immune? How about wood-and-fabric types?

What types of equipment can be fitted to aircraft to alleviate the effects of airframe icing?

What is the difference between 'Anti-ice' and 'De-ice'?

How much ice can we leave on the aircraft and still safely fly?

If we taxi through snow before take-off, what could be the result?

spanners

[Reynolds No.]

Try the following links for the answers!

https://www.aopa.org/asf/osc/loginform.cfm?course=wxwise_precip&project_code=&

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Ice_Formation_on_Aircraft

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/In-Flight_Icing

[Henri Pitot]

Don't forget this one as well - http://aircrafticing.grc.nasa.gov/courses.html

Spanners, I commend you in increasing pilot's awareness to this phenomena. I studied the affect of icing during my early research days. It gave me good grounding to my Pitot tube, in that the height of the fluid column is proportional to the square of the velocity. This relationship was discovered intuitively by me in 1732, when I was assigned the task of measuring the flow in the river Seine. I've never known cold as I experienced in those days. Il fait froid!!