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The DA42 recently received its FIKI certification from FAA. FIKI ? Flight Into Known Icing conditions. Happy owners of DA42 equipped with the TKS system can now legally fly in clouds at temperatures below zero. Legally. But would that be a sound decision ?

Ice impact on performance is really strong. My experience of icing is very limited, as all light single engine planes I flew were not certified for flight in know incing conditions, so any ice encounter was unexpected, and quick escape was needed. If none was available, the only way would have been… down.

Jets and turboprops have much better anti-ice and de-ice systems, because their engines have all the extra.power required to melt the ice down, using hot air from the turbines, or pneumatic boots driven by the turbine compressor.

But the sole way to avoid icing problems is to not stay in icing layers. This is exactly what larger planes do. Icing can occur in any cloud when the temperature is below zero degrees Celsius. But if the temperature falls below -15, icing usually stops, except in Cumulonimbus. Jets simply climb high enough to be out of the icing layers.

Why don’t small planes do the same ? Because this requires much power, and the “ice-free” altitudes require turbo-engines and pressurization, or at least oxygen systems. The DA42 has turbo engines, but no pressurization nor oxygen…

I saw once ice forming on the leading edge of an Airbus 320, from Geneva to Zurich. Because this is a relatively short flight, we were flying at 15′000 feet only, the perfect altitude for icing. After a couple of minutes, the layer was so thick that the crew descended a few thousand feet to get out of it.

When I asked the Captain while un-boarding the plane, he confirmed that he descended because of ice, and that both anti-ice and de-ice systems were both running. Conclusion ? Even a plane with two powerful jet engines can’t sustain severe icing for long. So what about a DA42 with TKS ?

Only time will tell…

More reading:

From Diamond - From AOPA

If you don’t already know, I decided to change job and because of this, I became a low time pilot, and saved my IFR rating for one year.

The big leap is now behind me: this post is the first one I wrote from our new home in the Frankfurt area - using a temporary UMTS connection (sorry for non tech-savvy readers). The move and adrministrative work it created is not totally over now, but strangely the aeronautical part is not the hardest.

When I called the swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA), they simply told me I had to notify my new address to them, and that’s it. Thanks to JAA, no need to convert my swiss-issued JAA licence into a german-issued JAA licence.

The medical part is a bit more complex. JAAs don’t allow to change Aeronautical Medical Examiner (AME) without a good reason, but an international move is certainly a good one. But as I will probably go back to Geneva periodically, I can also arrange an examination with my swiss AME.

Flying again is not the highest priority, compared to set-up the house, see how the family runs on the new budget, give a good start to this new job (still air-transport related…), and get used to this new life.

However, if some of you have tips about flying in Germany, particularly in the southern Frankfurt area, I would greatly appreciate that. I already identified Egelsbach as a potential new homebase. You can send your suggestions in comments, or mail-me directly (address in “About me“) page.

Despite all these changes, I expect to keep the pace up with this blog, and I gathered new ideas during the few days I was not online (yes, you read some pre-written posts…), so stay on this frequency for more !

It’s always the same story ! As soon as I’m away from the Internet for a couple of days (more on this later), interesting event do occur. If you missed it, a gun got fired on a US Airways flight. Gun on board ? Yes, one of those pilots can legally carry if they want and are trained for.

Many blogs already related these facts, so I won’t bring my two cents. Aviatrix from Cockpit Conversation made a particularly good job on this issue. The two posts on her blog not only tell facts, but they also contains lot of research and complementary information. No wonder this feed is on top in my reader…

First post in “Cockpit Conversation” Didn’t they expect this ? (including photos)

Second post in “Cockpit Conversation”: Plausible Explanation