"Paul Mennen" wrote in message .com...

Does this seem preposterous to anybody else?

Does what seem preposterous. You'd rather wait until it ices up?
Pitot heat is anti-ice, not de-ice. You'll never turn it on for fear you
will forget to turn it off?

Reminds me of the instructions in the POH of my Decathlon that says I
should leave the electrical fuel pump on during takeoff because gravity
feed alone is not sufficient to produce takeoff power in the event the
engine driven fuel pump fails. Gosh, what are we - like the
monkeys on the early space missions. Can't we just turn on the
switch when we need it?

Gosh, and you want to wait until the engine quits on takeoff to determine
you need to turn it on and wait for a restart while heading for the trees?
Takeoff is one of those times you are using full power and wish to retain
full power even in the event of a pump failure. At cruise, you have more
time to detect the failure and switch on the backup.