Winter is rapidly approaching, bringing with it more challenging flying conditions. According to the AOPA Air Safety Institute’s annual Nall Report, one factor that causes about a quarter of weather-related accidents is ice. While you are not immune to icing conditions in the summer, you will more likely encounter this phenomenon in the winter. As the air gets colder, freezing temperatures are more likely to exist at the altitude at which you fly. But temperature alone doesn’t produce ice and the more you can learn about how and why ice forms, the more you can keep yourself flying safely through the winter months.
It’s a very discomforting feeling, watching ice form on the wings. It’s happened to me a few times and it always created a knot in my stomach. Unfortunately, structural ice forms on the most critical parts of a flying airplane: the leading edges of the wings, elevator and propeller blades. Since the first third of these surfaces create the most lift (and in the case of the propeller, the most thrust), ice accumulation diminishes the performance of the airplane. With enough ice, the airplane could literally drop out of the sky as the lift and thrust diminish.
