The Madness of Icing

Richard L. Collins

Thursday, January 05, 2006 at 10:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The author contends that certifying light airplanes for flight in icing conditions is counterproductive, leading to increased costs and complexity without providing genuine safety for continuous flight, and potentially creating a false sense of security.
Even with ice protection systems, aircraft experience severe performance degradation (e.g., significant loss of climb, speed, and increased stall speed) from ice accumulation, making sustained flight in icing highly risky, as evidenced by accidents involving certified aircraft like the Cessna Caravan.
Ice protection systems, whether approved or unapproved, are best utilized as tools to temporarily mitigate and safely *escape* unexpected icing encounters, not to enable prolonged operations within such hazardous conditions.

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I have written that it is madness to certify light airplanes for flight in icing conditions. Some have misinterpreted that to mean that I don’t think light airplanes should be equipped with ice-protection gear. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the ice protection systems that are available today, and that are not approved for flight in icing conditions, are a great value both for the money and for the utility that they offer.

The reason that I think it is foolish to certify the systems is that certification adds to the cost and complexity without a corresponding increase in usefulness. It might also carry with it some false promise. Certification might suggest to some that the airplane is okay to fly in continuous icing conditions. No problem with flying along cracking the ice with boots or letting TKS fluid ooze out onto the surfaces. That is simply not the case.