PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - ATR 72 Icing & Loss of Control - Recovered
Old 28th Dec 2017, 21:34
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Prober
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: New Forest
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Antice

Never having flown the ATR I am not qualified to comment. However, the thread seems to have drifted to ant-ice in general and, as this is a forum from which, in the absence now of a company “horror comic”, many of the latest generation of pilots will gather a wealth of other people’s experience. I am well into my dotage, so can assure Blind Pew that, even with hindsight, I do not think that either Munich or Staines would have been avoided. But, that aside, for what it is worth, having completed the 757 course in its early days, I was actually quite worried about its ability to fly in icing conditions. The old ARB course went into considerable detail but the Boeing one seemed to concentrate on “if its green, go. If its amber, watch it. If its red, don’t go (or make your own arrangements!).
Flying into Helsinki one winter’s afternoon, we spent a good five minutes descending on glide whilst in potential icing conditions. There was a slight build –up on the windscreen wipers (the Boeing indicator) and I switched on the wing antice as a precaution. We landed without incident, but the engineer came upstairs and asked me come outside. He showed me an horrific sight. The leading edges of the wings and tailplane, apart from a few (symmetrical) surfaces, were clothed in baulks of ice the size of railway sleepers. One by one they disengaged themselves and fell to the ground with resounding crashes.
Boeing were right – it did fly! (Much to my surprise.)
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