Icing equipped singles

[nick14]

Hello all,

Does anyone know of any singles with de-ice/anti-ice equipment? Having flown an IFR single the dispatch rate is lower due to icing conditions. I have flown twins that obviously have greater capability although at a much higher price.

Cheers

[The Grim EPR]

The Cirrus SR22. The newer models can be equipped for flight into known icing (earlier ones were non FIKI)

Cirrus SR22 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_SR22)

Sadly, around the same price as a twin....

[MarcK]

Cessna T210 and P210 were available with known ice, and can be retrofitted with TKS for known ice.

[iwrbf]

Hi,

take care about the different regulations regarding icing in FAA and EASA regions.

Incomplete listing:

NOT Known Icing (as far as I know)

TKS:different Beech Bonanzas, Socatas and some Cessnas
Boots: Silver Eagle P210 with Allison, C337

Known Icing:

- Some Mooneys with TKS ( Known Icing when factory equipped, not so if aftermarket)
- Piper Malibu/Mirage(/Meridian/Jetprop)
- Cirrus SR22

I would strongly suggest to take a close look at performance in icing conditions. The the de-icing and anti-icing equipment in _every_ plane is not a solution to stay in ice but to sustain the options of climbing/descending/manoeuvering out of the ice...

Keep in mind that especially piston equipped airplanes are not famous for there climbing ability in the flight levels with ice on the unprotected areas... Additionally there's usually not a lot of redundancy in these systems.

Kind regards,
Peter

[Cobalt]

Mostly wot iwrbf / Peter said, I'd just like to add two points

1) Turbo is as important as de-ice, and oxygen (although portable is fine). This will give you the ability to fly above the weather most times of the year. Outside convective cloud, the icing layers are not very thick, so the icing equipment is useful to penetrate it (rather than loiter in it). Much better to do that at 1000-1500 FPM than at 300 FPM, reduced by ice to 100 and then negative...

2) TKS equipment is anti-ice. Advantage: better performance than with boots, where you get bits of ice clinging to bits of the wings. Disadvantage: should be running before you enter icing conditions, and if completely dry it should be ground-run until all panels drip before you take off... the fluid is expensive. I paid more for TKS fluid used outside icing than I needed for actual icing... and down-route it might be hard to get any, so carry plenty!


NB - The main differences between the SR22 FIKI and non-FIKI system are a second fluid pump and a third "ultra-high-flow" mode that was required by the FAA for effectiveness in more moderate icing if the system was not primed properly, so redundancy is actually ok. (I am deliberatly not using severe - severe icing will bring down ANY aircraft)

[peterh337]

I think oxygen is the most important thing because it enables you to avoid ice in the first place, and most flights that are done away from frontal weather can be "arranged" to avoid spending much time in IMC.

An N-reg TB20/21 with TKS is not FIKI certified, but a G-reg one is - the opposite of what you might expect. The FAA want a second alternator and some other stuff.

I have no experience of this myself but owners report that TKS is much more effective than rubber boots. But... when the fluid runs out, it's gone. So it's a matter of strategy.

It seems readily apparent that when one looks at nonpressurised owners of these two systems, the TKS pilots use it to get through layers, and most use oxygen to fly VMC on top (like I do but I have only a TKS de-iced prop). The booted pilots often seem happy enough to just keep flying in IMC, at low levels, collecting a bit more ice here and there.

I don't think it is a total coincidence that planes over 1999kg, which pay Eurocontrol IFR charges, have mostly boots ;) If you are flying "VFR" in IMC for hours, then you want boots, not TKS. Of course a part of that is that they tend to be older designs which pre-date TKS.

[iwrbf]

Hi,

I just ran across some older news: the Beech Bonanza G36 got a TKS FIKI by weepingwings in 2011

News Archives - CAV Aerospace, Inc. (http://www.weepingwings.com/mx/hm.asp?id=archives)

Take a look at April, 11th 2011. This is quite interesting as there are numerous TKS equipped Bonanzas without the "Known Ice" status out there. Now there's legal icing capability with the Bos.

Kind regards,
Peter

[dirkdj]

A friend of mine TKS'ed his A36 Bonanza at Friedrichshafen two years ago, he could choose between a non-FIKI and a FIKI system. The only difference was a second fluid pump and of course price and paperwork. With the turbonormalizer and a strong IO550 Powermaster engine plus the 400lbs GW increase it makes a formidable traveling machine.

[IFollowRoads]

I'm a FIKI Bravo driver, it does what it says in the tin. Pretty much agree with everything said above, with a couple of additions/corrections:

Mooney do FIKI or no hazard as factory or aftermarket install. Principle differences are the twin pumps and heated stall vane, but you still would find it prohibitively expensive to change a no hazard system into a FIKI. The Bravo already has twin batteries and alternators before you put the TKS system on, I have a feeling the Ov only has one alternator as standard (but twin batteries)

General consensus over at PPL/IR when I was looking was that a turbo is more use than FIKI, and oxygen is required for either, although portable will obviously be adequate for the latter.

I would guess I do about 10litres of TKS fluid a year just keeping the panels wet, and for other maintenance the filters are a 2 year replacement item and an extortionate price (several hundred Euros). On the positive side, cleaning leading edges becomes a thing of the past, but for the rest of aircraft cleaning it is a six and two threes. It will drip on your hangar floor though, not a problem if it is permeable, but very slippery if it is sealed and painted

I can get longer than the 2.5 hours from a 6US gallon tank by modulating the use of it (not that I'd spend 2.5 hours continuously in icing conditions anyway) but it depends on the severity of the conditions. It's probably possible to blow the whole lot in an hour and a half if you don't choose your levels wisely or pay attention to the conditions outside. If I'm going away for 10+hours of flying, or 5+ in particularly nasty weather, I'll probably put a couple of 5 litre containers of fluid in the baggage bay, but have rarely dipped into them other than to top the tanks. I normally keep 20-100 litres in the hangar as you won't find it at every airport (It's not too bad to get, oxygen is harder) 10EUR/litre is the average retail price

With FIKI TKS the Mooney/Bo (and probably the others) become pretty much as good as you're going to get in the SEP as a 'go anywhere/anytime' mount, subject to your departure & destination airports which then become the limiting factor (my homebase has no snow clearing capability, it closes when it gets to 6" deep). The Mooney load carrying is rather poor when compared with the Bo, which is better in this respect, albeit with a small speed penalty. The CAV website at Welcome - CAV Aerospace, Inc. (http://www.weepingwings.com) has some more info on TKS

[peterh337]

I am not sure that American FIKI certification is particularly relevant in the legal sense in Europe.

The FAA definition of FIKI has varied over the years, and European weather forecasting services do not map onto the American ones. For example, the "throw in everything including the kitchen sink" UK Form 215 forecasts moderate icing in all cloud irrespective of temperature. This makes a mockery of any concept of a departure into "known icing".

(Those correctly dedicated to aviation should now google for "known icing", and read 10 years of Usenet's finest contributions in rec.aviation.ifr etc :) ).

And once you are airborne, everything is within the scope of "Captain's decisionmaking", including what precisely you do about any given degree or type of ice accretion.

I have found the prop-only TKS system to be excellent, and at something like £3k it is far and away the best 3k one could spend on a plane. The prop never gets iced up, and neither does the windscreen which has remained clear even with 30mm of ice on the wing leading edges and rather more on the elevator (an encounter which developed in stratus cloud in about 5 mins) and I let it go that far only because the surface temp was +3C so providing an escape route.

CAV Aerospace is an exceedingly arrogant company which apart from being hard to deal with has an outrageous minimum invoice value of £250 (http://static.tumblr.com/hlfiaol/U70m0yhof/nah_.jpg) so buying any small spares is going to cost you that much at least.

[Takeoff53]

I'm looking onto a project to operate a N-registered Cessna Caravan 675 or a Quest Kodiak in Europe for a customer.
Either aircraft may be fitted with TKS-system and I have no experience with TKS. The main question at the moment is:
- costs to run the system
- availability in Europe
- usefulness for daily operations up to levels those aircraft (max FL 240) can go.
Anyone with some inputs? Thanks!

[Pace]

Some excellent advice here!
Another point to remember regardless of a booted aircraft or TKS aircraft is prop anti ice.
I have a lot of multi engine prop time over the Uk Scotland and Ireland in summer and winter day and night!
Icing is not something to Hang around in and you must be capable and able to change levels by up to 5000 feet so consider the need to go into CAS as well as a turbo charged engine and oxygen!
Problem not so bad if you know for sure that you can descend to above the MSA and loose it all.
I have had a couple of trips airways in a booted deiced twin where I asked the controller to let me pop down to get rid of ice and pop back up again.
This was not because of a failure of the boots to do their job but ice on the rest of the airframe knocking maybe 25-30 kts off the cruise speed.
On longer trips it made sense to drop down and come back up with the controllers agreement.
TKS as fitted to a Citation S2 will give you a cleaner wing than a booted wing and remember the booted wing requires maintenance for holes and replacement which can be costly! Booted aircraft are limited in the temperatures they are used.
TKS is expensive but you probably won't use it in Anger that many times.
Fit a into known icing approved system as other part systems while being better than nothing especially prop anti ice will effect your dispatch rate into known ice conditions and doing so in a non approved deice/anti ice system would effect your insurance.

Pace

[Ellemeet]

Commander 114 can have weepingwings FiKI