Originally Posted by
one dot right
Could somebody please explain why airbus
can't fit their aircraft with pitot static probes with
enough 'oomph' so that they don't ice up in a CB when
you really need them to be working?
OK, I'll have a go at this one.
(It's not really (just) Airbus's problem, since it's the probe manufacturer that qualifies the probe, not the OEM, but the OEM does end up holding the bag at some point)
They can't just add more oomph because the nature of the problem is different (assuming we're talking about ice crystal contamination and not classical inflight icing) - just making the probes hotter doesn't help, as the part affected isn't protected at all. And we still don't really understand the whole phenomenon, though people do know a lot more now than 5 or ten years ago. It's hard to design against a vaguely-defined threat. I'm not even sure there were test facilities that could reproduce the conditions until quite recently.
In fact, IIRC, Airbus had an internal probe spec which was somewhat more severe than the industry minimum Part 25 Appendix C, but that has proven to not be enough in some cases.