There are many environmental factors that determine what type of icing accretes on your airframe. [Courtesy: NASA Glenn Research Center]
Key Takeaways:
Mixed icing is a combination of rime and clear ice characteristics, forming as a transition between the two types or when an aircraft encounters varying environmental conditions, such as during a climb or descent.
Rime icing is rough, milky, and opaque, resulting from the rapid freezing of small supercooled water droplets in colder temperatures, typically accumulating on leading edges.
Clear icing is glossy and translucent, formed by the relatively slow freezing of larger supercooled water droplets in warmer subfreezing temperatures, often extending further back on the airframe.
Accurate pilot weather reports (PIREPs) are vital for aviation safety, requiring details on the icing type, altitude range where it was encountered, and the outside air temperature.
Answer: To answer that question, let’s look at the three icing types that pilots are asked to report. These include rime, clear, and mixed. What icing type accretes on your airframe depends on many environmental factors. Let’s briefly discuss each of these factors as it relates to the type of icing.
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Scott resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, and flies regularly throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S. He is a CFI and former NWS meteorologist. Scott is the author of "The Skew-T log (p) and Me: A Primer for Pilots" and the founder of EZWxBrief.
