Issues around de-ice on a 182

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message
...

Out west (I've only flown twice east of the Mississippi in 15 years
flying)
it means leaving at sunrise and being back before about 3:00PM.

Exactly... same here if I need to be able to rely on getting back.

That means I can't reliably do same-day business trips in the summer but I
often can do so in the winter.



--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

The weather data link (weather in the cockpit) would definitely help 'see'
what's ahead and around corners . My go-no go decisions are made based on
the criteria mentioned above but the screen gives me a good path around the
cells (stick to clear or light green).

Case in point was Friday returning from Ft Myers, Fl to TN. Couldn't get
away until 9pm due to solid lines across FL & GA but after dark, they died
down with large holes to fly thru. We made it without a drop on the wings
(save one little spot in GA)

Having said (?) that, I'd get TKS in a heart beat, if it were available on
my A36.
--

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.



take off my shoes to reply

TKS is available on A-36 as well as the F-33 and V tail Bonanzas. Contact AS
and T in Salina, KS.

I'll second the "fly pretty well" with a load of ice. I should not have
been there years ago.....but.......
Another second...My two cents...I don't believe a 182 should have the
TKS...might go when you shouldn't...

John N3DR


"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Andrew Gideon wrote:

One of the members of my club has proposed that we add TKS de-ice to our
two
182s. Apparently, such a system is to become available later this year.

My reaction at first was negative. After all, in our near-NYC location,
the
utility of such a tool is limited to a few months a year. Surely we
could
spend money better (ie. on upgades that would be useful year round).

His reply to this reasoning is that our aircraft utilization is much
lower
in the cold months than in the summer. If we can increase winter use,
then
we get better value from our investment.

It's a good point. Of course, when I mentioned this to my wife, she
asked
how much of the lower use was due to the threat of ice, and how much was
due to our lack of love for preflighting in subzero weather.

Another good point grin.

But it does have me wondering. The system would not be "known icing"
compliant. So...what difference in utilization would it make? I'm
curious
what others - esp. that fly with de-ice - would reply.

Without "known icing" certification, I don't think it buys you much at
all from utilization perspective. It is insurance if you get caught in
ice, but that is it. And if if DOES increase utilization it means that
you have pilots flying in conditions they likely shouldn't be in anyway.

And, I know from a hairy personal experience, a Skylane will carry a lot
of ice and still fly pretty well. I'd invest the money and weight into
something more useful.


Matt

(Richard Kaplan) wrote in message . com...
"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
I don't think I'm any different than other experienced IFR pilots. When
pilots are scheduled to fly to me for IFR recurrent training who have
well-equipped airplanes, arrival delays are more common due to summer
thunderstorms than to winter icing. When I conducted a group "IFR Survival
Weekend" class a few weeks ago, pilots were concerned about thunderstorms
but wanted to be present for the whole course and therefore about 15 out of
20 drove instead of flying.

Wow. I fly in California over teh Sierras and northern Cal. You are
almost guaranteed to get TS in the afternoon but they always seem easy
to go around. I've never had to cancel a summer afternoon flight
because of TS.

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message ws.com...
"Peter R." wrote in message
...

Syracuse, NY. From what I understand about the system, the difference
between the not known icing and the known icing TKS system has to do
with redundancy, not functionality. In other words, known ice TKS
system has a backup pump and, IIRC, requires backup electrical.

Another difference is in-flight icing testing of a prototype airplane is
required for known-ice certification.

Another difference is that known-ice requires that the engine still
run during ice encounter. A TKS system does not keep your fuel vents,
etc from freezing. One of the differences between the Mooney 201 and
231 (the 231 has known ice as an option) is the fuel venting.

-Robert

Robert M. Gary wrote:
(Richard Kaplan) wrote in message . com...

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
I don't think I'm any different than other experienced IFR pilots. When
pilots are scheduled to fly to me for IFR recurrent training who have
well-equipped airplanes, arrival delays are more common due to summer
thunderstorms than to winter icing. When I conducted a group "IFR Survival
Weekend" class a few weeks ago, pilots were concerned about thunderstorms
but wanted to be present for the whole course and therefore about 15 out of
20 drove instead of flying.


Wow. I fly in California over teh Sierras and northern Cal. You are
almost guaranteed to get TS in the afternoon but they always seem easy
to go around. I've never had to cancel a summer afternoon flight
because of TS.

If you fly in the eastern US for long, you will. TS can be embedded in the
widespread overcast, you can't see `em. Just another manifestation of the
apparently huge differences in weather patterns between E and W US. I've come to
feel I understand summertime weather pretty well, but of course I haven't done
any flying out west, and I suppose it's completely different.

(Richard Kaplan) wrote
I stay on the ground when my flight would need to penetrate more than
scattered storms, i.e. I don't fly in situations when I can get boxed in
behind me or if I need to cross frontal thunderstorms.

Depending on how you interpret that, this kind of approach would have
me grounded half the year. In reality, since I got the stormscope I
have never cancelled a flight for T-storms.

I don't think I'm any different than other experienced IFR pilots.

I think you're dramatically different from experienced IFR pilots on
the Gulf Coast. I suspect you're no different from the pilots in your
neck of the woods. All the Gulf Coast IFR pilots I know who have
equipment and experience comparable to mine have spherics and use it
agressively.

On the other hand, most of these same pilots consider known ice on a
piston airplane something of a joke.

My suspicion is that this has nothing to do with the relative
capability of the equipment or risk tolerance of the pilots and
everything to do with experience. We get very little icing here, and
thus never really learn about it. We know that the ability of a
piston airplane to handle ice is limited, but we don't know how
limited, and we're afraid of getting in over our heads. Since we will
never have the opportunity to develop the necessary experience to get
true utility out of a known-ice plane, we don't bother with it.

On the other hand, we get T-storms every day, and thus become very
familiar with the associated weather patterns. Since we have plenty
of relatively mild T-storm weather (scattered to isolated) to practice
our skills in the course of normal IFR travel (there's no need to go
looking for it) we get very familiar with how our spherics eequipment
works and how the weather patterns develop. We know that the risk of
getting boxed in is real, but we're not too worried about it because
we know how this happens and how to bail out.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
om...

I think you're dramatically different from experienced IFR pilots on
the Gulf Coast. I suspect you're no different from the pilots in your
neck of the woods. All the Gulf Coast IFR pilots I know who have
equipment and experience comparable to mine have spherics and use it
agressively.

Do you think this is a function of the weather patterns in our geographic
areas (i.e. scattered airmass storms vs. frontal storms)?

In other words, if you were to move to Pennsylvania do you think you would
retain more or less the same summer utilization of your airplane?

My guess is that your thunderstorm philosophy would shift to that of
Northeast pilots while you were flying here.

I think part of this relates though to a definition of "cancelling" a
flight. I fly to Florida fairly often and I do not think I have ever had to
cancel a morning flight, yet more than once I have diverted somewhere due to
afternoon thunderstorms. When I have had to divert and then I do some
hangar flying with local pilots, usually the reply is, "You know down here
you have to plan to get your flying done by 2PM" -- I've heard that from
newly minted private pilots and from CFIIs who are "local" in Florida.

Even in Pennsylvania I guess we need to consider what it means to "cancel" a
flight. Earlier this week I returned from Mackinac Island Michigan to my
home base in Western Pennsylvania with a stop in Eastern Ohio to drop off a
passenger. There were thunderstorms enroute over the Great Lakes but I was
able to use my radar/spherics/datalink to reroute myself about 50 miles out
of the way on the first leg, thus completing the segment to Ohio by about
2PM. Yet by the time I was ready to complete the final 100-mile segment
home there were storms building enroute and near by destination as the
trailing edge of a frontal system. I "canceled" the flight until the
following AM, although I suppose I could have just "delayed" it until 11PM
when the storms had cleared -- clearly departing in the afternoon was not an
option because it turned out that a group of cells was right over my
departure airport between 6PM and 9PM.

So I think in part it depends on our definition of "cancelling" a flight.
If I lived in Florida and never "scheduled" a flight from 2PM to 8PM, then I
guess I might never "cancel" a flight in Florida.


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote
Do you think this is a function of the weather patterns in our geographic
areas (i.e. scattered airmass storms vs. frontal storms)?

No, although of course I can't rule that out.

In other words, if you were to move to Pennsylvania do you think you would
retain more or less the same summer utilization of your airplane?

So far my (admittedly limited) experience indicates that I would. I
have flown around frontal systems in the Midwest and Northeast and I
have not been surprised.

Getting the feel of what I could and could not do wasn't something
that happened all at once. In Texas (and much of the Gulf Coast) we
get airmass thunderstorms on an almost daily basis for half the year.
Of course we also get frontal activity. I used to stay away from
frontal activity, but over time, working closer and closer to it, I've
found where the limits are.

I think the fear of getting boxed in by T-storms is somewhat akin to
the fear of getting trapped by a widespread region of freezing rain -
not unfounded, but somewhat overblown. The only way to really get
trapped is (1) to have a whole bunch of new, very closely spaced cells
form too quickly to escape or land or (2) fly between two long lines
that squeeze you in faster than you can escape or land. Since the
Stormscope provides a good indication on general static discharge
activity (not just cells) and visual contact (in my experience 85% of
an IFR flight in such conditions will be flown in the clear) with
developing clouds provides information on vertical development, you
really have to ignore what's going on around you to get trapped. I
also can't really think of any accidents within recent memory where a
spherics-equipped airplane was trapped that way.

Michael