Lou, what landing in your career was the best ever? Lou's best was his last, but my best (I'm a real-world pilot too, sorta, I'm a student pilot) was my first. No bounces just a smooth touchdown, that landing impressed the heck out of my instructor.

CoolP asked:   Lou, regarding the icing (not on the cake) I wonder if all those de-ice and anti-ice stuff on planes is that effective when it comes to serious icing conditions.

I know that some birds are rather rigid in those, like some TwinOtter (NASA testbed), but how did a 707 for example handle severe icing, even with all her protective stuff enabled?
Was that a big threat?

And what are the first visible cues for a Captain to think of "I have to get the plane out of here, soon" instead of "we can handle that"?

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CoolP the turobjet planes do better for two reasons. First they have a lot of hot bleed air that can be used to anti-ice the wing and engine inlets. This is something the turboprop planes lack, so they use rubber boots or various chemicals. Second, the jets don't spend as much time in the icing area or altitudes. Jets generally climb faster than the slower prop planes. There are many types of ice, some much worse than others and some places where the icing is worse than in other places. Notice above I used the term "anti-ice" not de-ice. Anti-ice is used to prevent the ice from forming in the first place. De-icing infers that the ice need to build up first and then it is removed mechanically with boots or some alcohol or even electrically by heating wires. When the ice that has built up on the plane is broken off it can be a pretty nice meteor if it does not melt before it hits the ground - and I'm not talking blue ice here, that's another story!  

In the jet, you always want to get the anti-ice on early before the ice has a chance to build up on the nacelle and then break off and get ingested into the engine where it could do some real damage.  

You ask about different planes and how they handle icing. The old 707 did pretty good in its ability to carry ice. No plane at max gross weight would do well, but at lower weights, all the Boeing planes do OK with the exception of the 727. The problem is under powered and small wings. The 757 IMO did the best when it came to icing. In real life the airport you are operating out of is also a big factor. KLGA with its short runways was a big consideration when ice was a factor. Same plane at KJFK with its long runways was a different story. The method of de-icing was also a factor. Getting de-iced at the gate is a poor way to get the job done. Getting de-iced at the departure end of the runway is a whole lot better. BTW the de-icing fluid is very expensive as nasty stuff to pour down the storm drain. A 747 could expect to cost many thousands of dollars to remove the ice or snow, and if it's done at the gate is some cases it will not last long enough to make the takeoff possible.

Usually, the first thing the pilot sees is a build-up of ice on the windshield wiper. The 707 & 727 pilots used the large nut that holds the wiper in place as a guide to how much ice was sticking to the plane. The slower turboprops and other prop planes need to let the ice accrete a bit before using the boots. If the ice forms aft of the boot that is very bad.

Lou

Peter,

TWA had -100's & -20's and a few sp's.

I worked for AA for 5 years. All TWA pilots had to go through the AA school to be included under their FAA operating certificate.  Back in 1968, I was hired by United, Pan Am & TWA all in the same week. I went with TWA because they offered me the earliest class date. As your dad will tell you it's all about date of hire. I did OK in the AA thing, except they closed all the TWA bases and forced all former TWA pilots to fly out of STL.

Lou

Interesting. Well, at least you didn't go for Pan Am, you would've been through that 10 years sooner, and you would have had more experiences (yes, experiences, not experience).  My Dad got hired by Delta because he flew DC-3s for an airline in the South, and they were impressed that he got to Captain so quickly, in the biggest civilian taildragger (aside from Boeign 307, but nobody flew that much). Plus, he had family in Boston, where he was first based, so it worked out.

Thats unfortunate.

Almost as sensful as my dad's friend wantinga taildragger bonanza (since he himself [the friend] had a Cessna 195) and knew taildraggers were faster than nose-wheeled aircraft. He overlooked the fact that it was retractable...

CoolP, there was a minimum N1 for various ice conditions. More ice, more N1. We had a chart, but that is long ago and I cannot remember the numbers. Some planes - 727 -  had a indicator where you could read duct temp of the various anti-ice positions. The two critical ones were the #2 engine "s" duct and the wing in and out positions.

Lou

CoolP said: Thanks for that information about the duct temp, Lou. I will watch those gauges then, but I think that the temperatures there aren't modelled on the 707/727. Anyway, I will maintain some roughly higher N1 when descending with anti-ice on.
The gauge is there though, but it's always happy I think.

CoolP, the anti-ice system in the CS 727 works fine. Check out this screen capture...




What I did was just turn on the #2 engine anti-ice and select engine #2 to see the duct temperature. The engine is at idle. The number two engine is the only engine that will display an indication since the gauge only reads duct temps. Look closely at the anti-ice panel and you will see a T with a circle around it. The "T" is the area that is displayed in the gauge at the upper part of the anti-ice panel. There are 3 "T's" showing the duct temp is read at the number 2 engine "S" duct cowl and the other two places are in the wing anti-ice duct in the wing. There is also a duct overheat light which lights up to alert the pilot that the air is too hot in the duct, and to reduce thrust in the engine or engines supplying the air. If you select engine position 1 in the duct temp gauge you are looking at the air temp to the wing anti-ice duct supply from the number one engine. The same is true with the number 3 engine position. You would select the duct temp position for the area you want to monitor while anti-ice is being used. The problem areas are during high power settings where it could get too hot in the duct, or more likely during descent at low power settings where insufficient bleed air is supplied to keep the duct high enough to provide adequate anti-ice protection.

The panel has 5 switches, three for the engine anti-ice and two for the wing anti-ice. The valve position switch is kept in the OFF position when anti-ice is not being used. This keeps the lights off on the panel. The way engine anti-ice is used is as follows:

Before entering icing conditions ( which are +10c to -40c ) use the following:
Engine ignition ON.....................................ON
Valve position to LEFT................................LEFT
Engine anti-ice on one at a time..................Allow each engine to stabilize.
Check Left, Cowl and Right valve position - Leave valve switch on to remind you anti-ice is on.
To end anti-ice...
Turn off each engine, one at a time while observing engines.
Turn off ignition.

For engine anti-ice you are opening a left and right bleed air valve to protect the inlet guide vanes. The cowl position uses high and low pressure bleed air to anti-ice the engine cowl. Since the cowl needs more volume of hot air the high pressure bleed is mixed with the low pressure bleed and provides the needed volume of air. The number 2 engine is different in that the volume needed to heat the "S" duct is higher.

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