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Old 6th February 2009 | 23:25
  #99 (permalink)  
ShyTorque

Avoid imitations
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Pace, you are missing the point of that accident report and the manufacturer's advice therein and also ignoring what others have written. It's not a problem confined to very low speed ops. The helicopter type I flew with the problem of snow build up on the intakes cruised at 140 kts, not 5 mph. The 20 minute limitation in falling snow covered the full flight envelope.

Irrespective of aircraft type, fixed wing or rotary, an area acting as an airflow stagnation point can collect snow in flight. Your Citation is obviously less likely to collect snow than a light fixed wing or a helicopter because of its design - it was deliberately designed to have few stagnation points. An important stagnation point on a light fixed wing is the leading edge of the relatively blunt wing. Another is the face of the engine air intake filter box fitted to some light aircraft. Whether or not the accumulated snow still looks like it belongs on a Christmas card scene or a snowball stuck to a wall is, for practical and flight safety purposes, unimportant.

I see little point in continuing the debate further. We have different views borne out of our different training and personal experiences. (Seeing as you asked, apart from previous gliding and light aircraft PPL training my first 18 flying years of productive flying were military; the latter 15 years mainly civilian, with a bit of paramilitary stuff in between. I hold fixed wing and rotary pilot instructor qualifications).

One thing that (hopefully) everyone agrees on is that winter operations do need some extra thought. Hopefully, inexperienced pilots unsure about this subject will read all of the views here, do their own research, especially by checking out their aircraft manufacturer's advice on winter ops and come to the correct conclusion.

I'm out, I promised someone.
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