Served On Ice

This time of year ice is pretty much a way of life flying around BC. It's something we're searching for when we're looking over the weather. Luckily, the airport in Vancouver is usually pretty ice free. Climbing out over the North Shore mountains can be a different story. As the moist air comes off the Georgia Strait, it's forced up by the Mountains, cooling until it freezes, and climbing upwards, sometimes over 20,000'. The Icing can get to the point were certain aircraft will fly out over the Fraser Valley, before turning Northbound, in order to climb on top of the icing over the North Shore. Once on the ground, getting the aircraft ice free and keeping it ice free for the next departure could be a challenge.

Most of the time we can use simple methods to keep the aircraft clean. Wing covers and brooms are usually the first lines of defense. Next in line, and the method I've used the most would be small sprayer (think a 2 gallon garden sprayer) full of glycol (we call it a piss can). Nine times out of ten, the above works great and is pretty cheap, at least compared to the final alternative. Finally, if we can't clean the airplane with the above methods, we attack it with hot glycol. This is what folks would normally see when they're at the airport. The big truck with the lift soaking down airplanes with a pressurized spray like a mini fire hose. Only twice have I ever crewed an airplane that required calling out the truck.

In the above photo, we had just finished shooting the ILS/DME rwy 33 into Terrace. The ice we picked on the descent and approach was pretty minimal. In Terrace, it was raining steadily and the temperature was a few degrees above zero. Normally, this would be a good thing, as the ice picked up on approach would just melt and fall off. However, after cruising up at 23,000', the -30 degree air cooled down the fuel in the wings to well below freezing. The cold fuel kept the surface of the wing around the fuel cells below freezing. The rain that fell onto the wing turned quickly into a rough layer of ice. We tried the piss can, but it was beyond the abilities of a little glycol at room temperature. So, we had to call out the deice truck. A quick 2 minute spray of the wings cleaned the whole thing up and we were on our way....