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Icing doesn't arouse much excitement - until it
hits you. After all, if the plane is sitting on the ground covered
with ice, well, you can always just go back to the coffee shop. But
if you're fast running out of room, horsepower, and resources to
cope, icing is a serious obstacle to contend with. This would be a
good time dig out a copy of Aircraft Icing to have one last
look at what ought to have done before starting the engines.
In-flight icing conflicts can be equally exciting, because when ice
arrives, it's just like the the aircraft has been sprayed with
stucco. The windows are instantly covered with white-stuff, the
plane shudders and rolls unexpectedly. It starts coming down.
Sometimes it starts coming down real fast.
This book offers an unusual tech-oriented view of icing and
flight, with a strong emphasis on enabling pilots to easily
interpret icing forecasts and understand the available anti-ice and
de-ice systems available on today's aircraft. Some systems are
really excellent! Some are only marginal. The reader is shown how
to sift through METARs to find the trouble spots. This is really an
excellent book for pilots who need to work through the weather. The
bottom line is that no airplane is certified to fly in severe
icing, so all pilots must know how to work around ice. It's a fact
of life. Deal with it.
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