Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX N2469R wrote:

As for airframe ice, an ex-Cirrus salesman thinks the
Cirrus with TKS is worse for ice than a stock Skylane.
Apparently it takes much more ice to bring down a Skylane
than a Cirrus.

This is a great thread and I'm glad it came back up as it will be that
time of year soon.

The central issue is that ice distorts the shape of airfoils causing
them to behave in unpleasant ways. The more critical an airfoil is, the
less ice it takes to hurt its performance. This was illustrated most
dramatically by the recent string of accidents with the
Challenger-series jets which have power-to-weight ratios far in excess
of any GA plane. These appear to have involved amounts of ice that
would have simply made a 182 act piggy with their fat old non-laminar
wings. FWIW, the same comparison could be made between a 182 and a
Mooney.

Another thing I wonder about with the newer planes is their use of
cuffs and other sharp breaks on leading edges. It's known that ice
accumulation starts on smaller-radious objects and I can't help but
wonder whether these otherwise-useful features make the planes even
more susceptible to ice.

-cwk.