Verification that Heated Pitot is working

"Dave S" wrote ...
Why would you have a heated pitot on a Cessna 172 or a piper arrow then?
Neither of THEM are certified for entry into known icing conditions, but
its nice to have the ability to safely fly OUT of them if you get INTO
them.

Dave,

A 172 can take a bit of icing and get away with it. Trust me and please
don't ask any questions I won't answer. In selecting a canard type
aircraft, the owner has to realize that there are some huge differences in
the way the horizontal controls react to airflow disturbances. In the case
of icing, he needs to take extreme measures to avoid those conditions. Even
if that means grounding the airplane for an extended period. That's what he
bought into when he got the airplane.

Having said that, if anyone knows of a canard icing study that says
differently please point me to it.

Rich

Richard Isakson wrote:

Having said that, if anyone knows of a canard icing study that says
differently please point me to it.

While I won't disagree with you that icing conditions are certainly to
be avoided in canard aircraft, probably more than in conventional
aircraft, I will say that I know two folks that have flown in icing
conditions, collected some ice on the canard, and had minor issues.

One of those people is me, during my instrument lessons near
Schenectady, NY in April of this year. I got about 1/16" - 1/8" of ice
on the canard, and my stall speed went up about 10 Kts. I flew around
under the clouds for one circle of the pattern, the ice melted, and we
landed. Of course, having the stall speed go up and not realizing it is
far less dangerous in a canard, since I can't stall the whole plane or
spin it - I noticed the speed difference because the nose started
bobbing at 90 mph in the downwind to base turn.

Another aquaintance with a COZY has had ice up to 1/8" - 1/4" on his
canard, and he says about the same thing.

That being said, I still agree that icing conditions are to be
strenuously avoided - 1/8" of ice is certainly not a lot, and I wouldn't
want to be experimenting with more.

--
Marc J. Zeitlin
http://www.cozybuilders.org/
Copyright (c) 2005