Ice Bridging

jhugz

jhugz

Well-Known Member
I can't remember if I brought it up before on here, but this ice season again reminds me of how wrong the FAA is on this topic. That is all.
 
I think they are more right than we think they are.

1. More accidents are caused from activating the boots to late. No accidents has ever occurred because of activating the boots to early.

2. If ice bridging occurs, from my experience it will occur no matter how early or late you do the boots.
 
As a guy who has seen ice bridging on a Navajo years back when I chicken out and blew the boots early, I too worry about the FAA guidelines- but I didn't die when it bridged.

That was a navajo though, whose boot inflation time is similar to me blowing up an air mattress (compared to many happy years and many thousands of hours on turboprops).
 
I'd wait for a 10 knot airspeed loss before blowing boots in the 402. About the only way to get rid of the ice with slow, patched up boots.
 
Maybe they're not lying, maybe they're just stupid. I have seen ice bridging with my own two eyes, more than once, as, it sounds, have a number of others.
 
Havent flown the Metro in much icce, but I will say that the 99 and the PA31 are absolute champs in the ice... bridging or not. As for the bridging, well that entirely depends on the temperature and the type of icing encountered. Having spent a season flying the PA31 in the Cascade mountains of OR and the Sierras in CA, I will say that when the temps are right around freezing, I would try and let the ice build up a little more before shooting the boots. When its colder (like -10 c and below) I would shoot the boots at the first sign of icing. YMMV, and don't take my experience as gospel... the FAA and NASA are much smarter than i am ;)
 
"with the design of de-icing boots ice bridging doesn't exist!" I think I saw that somewhere with-in a nasa and faa web/traning video", "somewhere"
 
In six winters of Brasilia flying in the Rockies I saw lots and lots of ice including several encounters with severe. The boots were efficient, fairly quick and about as capable as inflatable rubber leading edges can be. We turned them on as soon as ice was detected. I never saw bridging. I am NOT saying it does not happen, or that waiting may not be the best course of action in some cases and aircraft. Simply that turning them on quickly, for the EMB, seemed to work about as well as anything.
 
Seen it on the MU2, and that is nasty, like Hey this an emergency if they don't let us change altitudes in the next couple minutes. With boots on the dash the only way you can really get a good break anyway is to let a fair amount build up before blowing them.
 
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