Heated wings for Experimental Aircraft

[Colonel]

[quote]the aircraft that we fly can't go half- fast enough to generate sufficient compression of the air to effect a rise in the RAT/TAT[/quote]

Yeah, but there are lessons to be learned.  When I have got stuck
on top of a nasty reported icing layer at my destination (in a piston
prop aircraft certified for known icing) what I have done is waited as
long as possible, cranked everything up, and then dove through the
layer with a maximum rate of descent that I'm sure would make a
TC Inspector unhappy, to get through it as fast as possible at
maximum speed.  You can play games with the pressurization to
avoid blowing everyone's ears.  Not that I worry much about that.

I would never, ever dream of accepting a hold in a nasty icing layer
(the lessons of Roselawn, Indiana from 1994 are long forgotten) but
again, I am told I am a [b]BAD PERSON[/b].

Note that TC Inspectors don't believe in physics, but regardless
there is a +5C rise at a measly 200 knots  :D

[Colonel]

Small note:  if you fly piston/prop in weather, sooner or later
you're going to see ice.

Free advice:  run as fast and as far away as you can.  In a
piston/prop with no equipment, you are completely defenseless
so don't try showing up to a gunfight without even a knife, ok?

A piston/prop aircraft certified for known icing is pretty much
showing up to a gunfight [b]with[/b] a knife.  You might think you're
armed pretty good, but you aren't.  Not even close.  Run.

Piece of advice:  people panic when the windshield ices over
and you can't see anything forward, but that's actually the
least important thing.  Who gives a shit if you can see, the
airplane still flies ok, right?  Nope.  All that ice reshapes your
wing, your airspeed drops off (not that Colgan 3407 noticed)
and the lifts decreases and the drag increases, and even with
maximum power, you will start a unstoppable descent.

I call this the "plummeting ice cube trick".  Don't do that.

Some observations from a [b]BAD PERSON[/b]:

1) in piston/prop, avoid ice at all costs

2) windshield iced over is irrelevant.  Don't panic

3) best anti-icing equipment is power.  Lots of
it.  At altitude.  This quickly leads you to conclude
that a turbo-charger is essential for a piston/prop
certified into known icing, even if TC tells you that
the paper doesn't require it.

4) Even if you ace all the above, weird failures with
fuel vents and oil breather tubes can really ruin your
day.  Learn your systems, even if there is no regulatory
requirement to.

A sub-note about (2).  The aviation experts in Canada
will tell you that you don't need to fly many types -
fly a couple, get into a Boeing, then drill holes into
the runway at Jamaica with a +3G landing because
you are incapable of controlling the speed.  Live the
dream.

I might humbly disagree.  Flying more, different types
makes you a better pilot.

The four-bars here will tell you that taildraggers and
biplanes are stupid and fucking useless, but I have
had to land a piston/prop with the windshield entirely
iced over - completely blind out the front - and because
of my thousands of hours in tailwheel airplanes that are
blind out the front, it was no big deal.  A curving descent
to a slant final, peek out the side and plop it onto the
runway.  I won't mention 0/0 landing training because
the ladies here all get their panties in a bunch.

Remember, airline pilots will tell you that Stearman
and T-6 and Pitts and P-51 and Spitfire and Hurricane
and P-40 are all stupid and useless little airplanes,
but you can learn lots of good stuff from them.

For the biplane haters, here's one for you:

[John Swallow]

Andy:

Your father's incident happened a couple of years before I got to Europe.  He was extremely lucky.  If you lost the engine driven hydraulic pump, you relied on the alternate battery powered pump which might give you anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes of control.  The guy who was the president of my accident board was still wearing his turtle shell from an "almost too low" ejection from a Sabre 6 at 4 Wing when his battery gave up the ghost in cloud on the flameout approach to Baden... 

I only had a couple of trips in the '104 but if memory serves, loss of blown flaps would add 60-80 knots to your speeds.  The following from the 'net:

  “To make landing speeds “reasonable,” The F-104 forced engine air through the wings to smooth the airflow and give more lift. With bleed air, the Zipper could land at the challenging but not extreme speed of 160 to 165 knots. If the air-bleed system was not working, landing speeds climbed to 240 knots.” 

If I'm not mistaken, the higher speed was close to the max speed for the tires, but I might be wrong on that.  After all, it WAS in the last century...  (;>0)

The use of the CF-5 as a lead-in trainer was a boon to the budding '104 drivers as approach speeds were only about 20 knots slower...

[Colonel]

Correct.  A no-BLC approach resulted in landing at
tremendous speed, in excess of what the tires and
(especially) chute were rated for.  You skittered
down the runway at quite a speed.

After systems failure, it was either land the airplane,
or climb over the side.

His systems failure in the -104 occurred right after
takeoff at CEPE/Cold Lake (he was a project pilot
in the so-called "class before one") so he was heavy. 

He wanted to burn fuel with burners and brakes before
landing, but the maintenance people on the ground told
him to get it on the ground [i]right now[/i], so he was heavy
with no-BLC.  Set up a long straight-in final.  Couldn't
see the runway (remember 0/0 training?)

You may think this odd, but in his opinion, no-BLC
in a broken heavy -104 was hairier than making up a
deadstick instrument approach in the Sabre in Europe.

[quote]He was extremely lucky[/quote]

Yes, for his entire flying career of over 60 years.

People think I am nasty and take risks, but they
never met that particular fanged fighter pilot.

Compared to him, I am Mother Theresa.  Nuturing
and kind and law-abiding.

And the sh1t he talked me into doing ....

One day, we are practicing for the airshow in
Honduras.  We're supposed to get a practice
slot, they were supposed to shut the airport
down, but that didn't happen.  Welcome to
Central America.  So, we're doing surface formation
aerobatics around Boeings and Airbuses that
are taking off and landing.

Now, some of the four-bars were cool, and
thought that was neat.  But other four-bars,
you could hear their voice go up a couple octaves.

It's never good when a four-bar's voice goes
up a couple octaves.  Harrumphing inevitably
ensues, registered letters are sure to follow.

So my father transmits to me on Tower,

"Let's go downtown".

Now, the city of San Pedro Sula is about a million
people, in the entire area.  About 7 miles from the
airport.  So we depart the zone, climb up to gain
energy, and over downtown San Pedro Sula, we dive
down to do our low-altitude formation aerobatic routine.

It was terrifying for me on wing.  I had no idea
where the hell we were, but my job was to shut
up and hang on, so I did.  Interesting visuals,
I remember seeing a guy on a scooter quite
clearly on the street, looking past the lead -
don't remember what attitude.

A good wingman says only three things, remember:

1) two's up
2) leads on fire
3) I'll take the fat one (j/k:  bingo fuel)

Anyways, our impromptu low-altitude formation
aerobatic over downtown San Pedro Sula, dipping
between the buildings, was a tremendous success -
all the airshow performers started to do it, to
promote the airshow on the weekend.

In the Glorious People's Republic of Canada, you
would surely go to jail for it.  But not in Central
America, where I didn't notice much in the way
of law.  It helped if the Colonels down there liked
you.  They loved us.  I have a funny story about
my exit visa.

[img width=414 height=500][/img]

Me inverted in the yellow S-2C.  (Homage to Donald Jack,
whom people here certainly detest).

All this to say, if you think I'm nasty and take
risks, you haven't seen anything. 

[img width=500 height=337][/img]

Me, hanging on in Alabama, with Curtis Pitts
watching.  You've probably never heard of
him.  He made stupid fucking biplanes that
airline pilots hate and thought we flew pretty
well, even if TC doesn't.

[img width=500 height=250][/img]

PS  Read Robin Old's biography, to learn how a
wing flies surface formation aerobatics. 

My kind of guy:

[img width=334 height=500]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/or ... 9d5f5e.jpg[/img]

He would make a very bad Canadian, but he was a
great man.

[Colonel]

Story for John.  If you've read this before, skip it,
and my apologies for the wasted interweb bytes.

My father was a highly qualified military and civilian
instructor, but he was a horrible one, IMHO.

Technically, he was strong.  After flying various
models of Sabres at 1 Wing in Europe, taught on
the T-33 at Gimli (hated it), and taught on the
F-104 at Cold Lake at the OTU to transitioning
Sabre pilots who had heard that the -104 was
[b]a fire-breathing dragon[/b] that could not be slowed
down.

Hogwash, my father would say.  It's all about the
AOA.  He would pull the -104 vertical, throttle to
idle, and with about 40 knots (basically zero) on
the ASI, kick the rudder for what he calls a "stall
turn" to the vertical downline.  We civilians refer
to it as a "hammerhead".

And the trick to doing a hammerhead in the -104
was to watch the equivalent AOA indicator, and
make sure it never exceeded the magic number,
otherwise T-tail pitch-up.  Ask Chuck Yeager
about his very bad day in a stalled -104.

So.  AOA is what matters, not airspeed.  Remember
that.

Anyways, they would exit the hammerhead on
a vertical downline, throttle still at idle, and
go supersonic and pull level.

I'm sure there are many F-86/F-104 pilots
that got that experience during their transition
training.

Fast forward to 1973.  I'm ten years old, 44 years
ago, and we are doing circuits at Toronto Island
in the Maule, me propped up on cushions to reach
the controls.

We turn base.  And, all I had to do was relax
the back pressure after power reduction and let
the nose drop.  Convert some altitude to airspeed,
ya know.

But I didn't.  We were high and slow on base,
and I was miles behind the airplane.  I'm ten
fucking years old in a 210hp c/s Maule, ok.

[img width=500 height=375][/img]

Hope Arlo doesn't notice the flight vis in that,
otherwise it's another stupid fucking trip to 333
Laurier for yet another wankerfest.

Anyways, no headsets or intercoms or boom mikes
back then, just an overhead speaker and a
microphone that you held in your hand, and the
noisiest fucking 4-seat cabin.

So my fanged fighter pilot father leans over
and shouts in my ear:

[b]"If you don't do something, we're going to die"[/b]

I am ten fucking years old at this point, trying
to fly a taildragger that today's airline pilots are
incapable of landing.  With it's tiny vertical fin,
the only time the ball was in the center was when
it was rapidly passing through it.

He was a great stick.  It was an honour to fly on
his wing.  But he was a horrible instructor.  Like
all good fighter pilots, he hated instructing with
a passion.

Lest you think the above is bizarre, try reading
"The Great Santini" sometime.  It will be illuminating,
a glimpse for you into a foreign time and place that
has long since disappeared.

I have the uneasy feeling that nearly all people,
if they were given a chance to meet their ancestors
as young people, would not particularly like them
because of how much the world has changed.

PS  Can I use the word "homage" in this crowd? 
I've had problems with "orthogonal" before, and
I'm pretty sure only Peter gets my favorite pilot
joke:

Q:  Why don't they let the Polish Air Force fly right echelon?
A:  Because they would have poles in the right hand plane!

Even Rui in the 'Peg didn't get that one, and he's
certain that he's brighter than any pilot.

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