Quote:
Originally Posted by Mistress
I figured if they could do it for carb heat they can do it for wing heat. Would bladders last long or degrade from the fuel. Or are you kidding about the bladder thing, I am gullible you know.
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I’ve flown lots and lots of aircraft with bladders. Our PA31 has them. Not a problem.
The problem is heating all the area around it. Not to mention it’s in contact with the lower inside surface, and quite close to the upper. Not a lot of room for warm air. That’s why I said “suspended”. Which is neither easy to do nor practical. I was pretty much kidding.
Something to consider -
Think about just how cold it is up there, even without the moisture.
Now normally the icing conditions are pretty close to the ground (~<10,000’)
That’s why quite often, and aircraft that is experiencing icing can actually climb up out of the condition and let the sun take care of the rest. But that’s an ascending thing. Not a descending thing. You have a very cold soaked wing when descending from 35,000’+, dropping into icing conditions.
It’s going to take a lot of heat energy to keep that wing warm enough not to ice.
A good case in point regarding just how cold the wings actually get
And an interesting story, I think:
Years ago. I crewed a 707 from Paris to Dallas. This is the plane that was TAG Petroleum Research’s and on it’s way to being John Travolta’s.
We had PATS aux fuel, so it was a long soaking flight. The fuel we had on board was very (as in VERY) wet from condensation (and bad fuel) issues.
Keep in mind that the water in the fuel will not (readily) mix with the fuel and unlike the fuel, it will freeze.
Anyway, we land in toasty warm Dallas and within no time it’s literally raining from the bottom side of each wing. I mean serious condensation “raining”!! We soaked the ramp out about 30’ from the aircraft. (Think of water running off a class of ice water here, and we didn’t use a coaster!) The “rain” continued for a few hours during the de-fuel.
After de-fueling for the maintenance that was scheduled. They had a crew start pulling the wing access panels while still on the ramp. A look into the wing revealed numerous odd shaped blocks of ice some measuring nearly 2’ in size. And that was after sitting in the sun for five hours. We’re talking: It gets COLD in there !!