Why not take a cirrus 20/22 stick it into a freezing wind tunnel and do a visible airflow analysis.
Would not a day or two of formal testing reveal:
exact moisture/OAT x minutes = end of safe range of lift without vs with TKS in minutes?
Maybe its a dumb question, but how much would a test like this really cost? Vs. having a few more guys buy the plane and try test piloting?
Good question, with Safety in mind this would be nice. But it would give an somewhat “exceptable” flight into ice w/o TKS and that is NOT SAFE. Think it would open a legal potential, but I’m not a lawyer…but I know one is watching…
Dennis?
In reply to:
Why not take a cirrus 20/22 stick it into a freezing wind tunnel and do a visible airflow analysis.
Would not a day or two of formal testing reveal:
exact moisture/OAT x minutes = end of safe range of lift without vs with TKS in minutes?
Maybe its a dumb question, but how much would a test like this really cost? Vs. having a few more guys buy the plane and try test piloting?
Jay,
There is a real problem with this approach, because of the very wide range of TYPES of icing that can be encountered. There really is a substantial disconnect between “the numbers” and the results. Type of moisture, amount of it, OAT… are only crude predictors of what will happen in a given situation. How would one take the results of any such test an apply them?
As an example… I have “found ice” at a temperature of -17C. Many texts say that’s outside the common range for icing conditions - but that didn’t prevent it from affecting me.
I’m not doing a good job of explaining why I think that measurements don’t help much with this… but I really believe they don’t.
In reply to:
I’m not a lawyer…but I know one is watching…
Dennis?
Yes, I watch over and protect, just like a mom.