Why no de-icing equipment on the tail?
 

My friend mentioned to me that the 737's he flies dont have any anti/de-ice systems for the tail plane or fin! Obviously in a decent through heavy calg you would expect to see a build up on an unprotected surface. So, why no anti/de-ice systems there??

You won't find h. tail or v. tail anti-ice on all current (and most past) Airbus and Boeing airplanes.

The OEMs demonstrate acceptable stability and control with 3" artificial ice shapes on all unprotected wing and tail leading edges as part of the basic certification process. The results are confirmed by at least one natural icing test.

Yep.

The only reason anyone deices the wing is that the performance penalty for not doing so outweighs the cost/complexity of the system. The balance is USUALLY the other way around for a tailplane, so no-one bothers.

...and since the ice build-up (and the profiles of h. and v. stab) are symetrical... not much worry.

Even if the tail sections are symmetrical (and not all are) the ice buildup, on the horizontal tail anyway, won't be, because the flow won't be symmetrical.

I'm also reminded that some aircraft do have tail de-icing. SJ30-2 being one example...one can only assume that for those cases, the benefit in, say, usable cg range outweighs the cost of installing the system.

"I'm also reminded that some aircraft do have tail de-icing. SJ30-2 being one example"
The MD-80 series being another.

I used to fly Fairchild metro, that did have de-ice boots on the tail, and I believe they were certainly needed - I believe a tail plane stall in icing conditions was a serious threat having heard of a crew who had to deal with one....
Not sure as to why some types would be more suseptible to aerodynamic problems on the tail in icing than others?

The DC-8 has a tail de ice system

The B707 also has tail anti-icing fitted.

The primary reason newer designs (including the L1011) have no tail surface anti-icing is because the stabilizer has a large angle of movement due to trim requirements...or, in the case of the TriStar, pitch control.
The older jet transports with tail anti-icing had it fitted for a reason...it was assumed it was necessary due to prior experience with piston powered types.

From my experience, I can tell you that we've landed after a number of moderate rime encounters and the tail was clean.

EMB145 has tail & stab de-icing. Needs it too.

Saw a rather scary video of flight ice trials carried out on the J41 by BAe. Was after the Roslawn ATR prang. Also ATR had another prang due to full flap and tail plane icing, thing that was in Italy?

BAe did loads of work on tail plane icing. Know the ended up changing the elevator profile and leading edge design on the J41.

Anybody that was at BAe at the time for comment?