Heated TKS fluid

Fly_Unity

Well-Known Member
Several weeks ago a C 182 pilot landed at our airport with several inches of ice on the leading edge. (and a white face) He had a STC on his 182 with a TKS fluid system on the wings, tail, prop, and struts.

He stated that the fluid just turned the ice more into mushy rime, and it never flew off like it normally does.

I noticed this once on my last ice encounter in snowy conditions. (hard for me to imagine Cirrus and others actually got known ice certified with such systems)
I noticed that TKS fluid does little to take ice off, (mostly prevents it IF turned on in time)

This got me thinking, Why not run the exhaust pipes through the TKS tank and heat it up? I believe this would be MUCH more effective. Is this feasible?
 
See if there's a current FLX pilot on here. I understand they run some of their Barons and 210s with TKS anti-ice.
 
I'd have thought there was an issue with it evaporating, but this is merely speculation.
 
TKS is NOT for deicing. It is for aniticing BEFORE you start acumulating. If you wait too long before turning it on it won't work.
 
TKS is NOT for deicing. It is for aniticing BEFORE you start acumulating. If you wait too long before turning it on it won't work.

TKS CAN deice, just have to be able to put it out in large quantities for it to be able to work and you can't let a lot of ice accumulate before you try and remove it. Most (if not all) TKS systems are equipped with two settings... low (anti ice) and high (de ice).

However, TKS works best as an anti ice system.
 
This got me thinking, Why not run the exhaust pipes through the TKS tank and heat it up? I believe this would be MUCH more effective. Is this feasible?

Purely guessing but I have two thoughts on this.

One, I bet it is because the fluid would take a while to heat up to a decent de-ice temperature. For instance while working line service it takes about 45 minutes for our de-ice truck to get the temperature of the fluid up to 180 degrees F with two large gas fired heaters. Granted it is about 900 gallons of tank but usually it is only about half full. So from a tank standpoint in an aircraft maybe at full heat it would take 15 minutes for it to warm up. But that is at an optimum heat so it would probably take a while longer due to idle, run-up, etc. And one would need that heat almost immediately if departing and encountered ice say at 3-4000ft.

My other thought on this is in some aircraft, the installation of a heating system just isnt practical. The weight of piping and installation of more insulation (from the heat) would make say a 206 or Cirrus add another 20 pounds or more. There is also balance to think about since most installations are placed under an aircraft's typical center of lift or near the rear (on more nose heavy planes like a 210). So piping on those installations would have to be added and possibly routed through the floor but there really isn't much room under there.

An electric system may work better but then you run into limits on your alternator and breakers.

It is an interesting idea though...just a little to cantankerous to be practical.

What ever happened to columbia's electric hot wings? Wasn't someone also developing a wing leading edge the looked similar to a TKS metal bar but instead of emiting fluid, it vibrated at a certian frequency to keep ice from forming?

my 2 cents...
 
Several weeks ago a C 182 pilot landed at our airport with several inches of ice on the leading edge. (and a white face) He had a STC on his 182 with a TKS fluid system on the wings, tail, prop, and struts.

He stated that the fluid just turned the ice more into mushy rime, and it never flew off like it normally does.

I noticed this once on my last ice encounter in snowy conditions. (hard for me to imagine Cirrus and others actually got known ice certified with such systems)
I noticed that TKS fluid does little to take ice off, (mostly prevents it IF turned on in time)

This got me thinking, Why not run the exhaust pipes through the TKS tank and heat it up? I believe this would be MUCH more effective. Is this feasible?

The more I read this, the more it sounds like he possibly didn't prime the system before takeoff, and didn't turn it on prior to or immediately after encountering ice. Seems like the ice was well accumulated on the airframe before the TKS was turned on.

Been there, done that... primed the system prior to takeoff , flew almost 2 hours before hitting any ice, I was slow to respond (discussing decent and approach with new SIC), system was slow to respond... it takes a few minutes to start removing ice that way... and it does look like mushy rime now that I think about it.
 
TKS is designed as an anti-ice system. It can be used as a deice but I do not recommended. I fly with TKS on both C210's & Baron's and the best way to operate the system is to use it prior to entering ANY icing situation. If you wait until you get into the situation then you will have trouble getting all of the ice off of the aircraft. Been there done that, not by choice either. My first encounter ever with icing I was flying a C210 out of ASG and got moderate icing and the system wasn't primed up yet so I got stuck with ice on the wings until I landed about 30 mins later.

The reason why you don't heat the fluid up is because it was run away from the leading edges quicker. If you every see a plane with TKS on a warm day after the pilot uses it you will see a huge wet spot underneath all leading edges. That is TKS fluid that has escaped from the leading edges. As temperature increase the TKS fluid runs back into the holding tank, in the Baron that's the nose. So I don't really have an option to heat up the fluid. It takes me an extra 10 minutes and ONE gallon of TKS fluid to prime the system. I would rather prime the system then heat it up...too much time to get it back up to the leading edges.
 
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