Inflight icing data gathering during routine flight operations - a case study

For the purpose of the design and certification of inflight icing protection systems for transport and general aviation aircraft, the eventual re-definition/expansion of the icing environment of FAR 25/JAR 25, Appendix C is under consideration. Such a re-definition will be aided by gathering as much inflight icing event data as reasonably possible, from widely-different geographic locations. The results of a 12-month pilot programme of icing event data gathering are presented. Using non-instrumented turboprop aircraft flying upon mid-altitude routine air transport operations, the programme has gathered observational data from across the British Isles and central France. By observing a number of metrics, notably windscreen lower-corner ice impingement limits, against an opposing corner vortex-flow, supported by wing leading edge impingement limits, the observed icing events have been classified as 'small', 'medium' or 'large' droplet. Using the guidance of droplet trajectory modelling, MVD values for the three droplet size bins have been conjectured to be 15, 40 and 80mm. Hence, the 'large' droplet category would be in exceedance of FAR/JAR 25, Appendix C. Data sets of 117 winter-season and 55 summer-season icing events have been statistically analysed. As defined above, the data sets include 11 winter and five summer large droplet icing encounters. Icing events included 'sandpaper' icing from short-duration 'large' droplets, and a singular ridge formation icing event in 'large' droplet. The frequency of 'large' droplet icing events amounted to 1 in 20 flight hours in winter and 1 in 35 flight hours in summer. These figures reflect 'large' droplet icing encounter probabilities perhaps substantially greater than previously considered. The 'large' droplet events were quite localised, mean scale-size being about 6nm.