Pitot failure modes
Ok, quick question. If you ice over the pitot tube inlet, the obvious thing that should happen is that the pressure in the tubing behind the pitot will bleed out the bleed port intended to remove moisture and airspeed indications will drop toward zero.
But on a heated pitot, if the interior is hot enough, some of the moisture might flash to steam and actually pressurize the pitot system between the ice block and the remaining tubing. Has anyone seen this effect? Keep in mind that the boiling point of water at FL350 isn't that high. Much less than 100 degrees C/ 212 degrees F.
Can anyone conclusively say that AF447 didn't get a (bogus) Mach warning at the beginning of their problems?
Sid