Comments on: Rotor blade icing

By: Alan D. Resnicke

Alan D. Resnicke — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:51:34 +0000

Some of my scariest moments flying USAF helicopters was one trip to Korea, in IFR near the DMZ in icing conditions. Our HH-53C shed the rotor icing asymetrically, which lead to some short-lived but impressive vibrations. Breaking out and warming up was a relief beyond words. As I recall, we may have nicked one tail rotor blade but had no damage otherwise. Whew! Don’t go there, folks!

By: Jim Borger

Jim Borger — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:13:16 +0000

Keep in mind that the inboard section of the main rotor blades can ice up enough that you can’t maintain RPM in an auto but you will not feel any degradation in the controls until well past that point. Ice is nothing to mess with. Anti-ice and de-ice equipment, even in an aircraft certified for flight into known icing, should be used only to get out of icing conditions. An empty CH-47 flew into freezing rain in Germany and the pilot immediately started a 180 degree turn. By the time he completed the turn he had picked up so much ice he could not maintain altitude with full power and had to go all the way to the ground.

By: MJ Shipping and Transport

MJ Shipping and Transport — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:25:29 +0000

This has been a really interesting Article for me. Helicopters are fascinating machines and I always enjoy trying to better understand them, especially indifferent weather conditions.

Thank You

By: Alex Kovnat

Alex Kovnat — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:18:00 +0000

Has the Osprey had any problems with proprotor or wing icing, and does it have any anti- or deicing devices? Did Eurocopter design any ice protection into their experimental rotary-winger which uses side propellers for propulsion assist and torque management?

By: Terk Williams

Terk Williams — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:35:41 +0000

I flew for the USCG and despite my Kodiak tour (complete with lots of deployed shipboard time in the Bering Sea ) my worst weather flying was out of Brooklyn, NY (Floyd Bennett). On more than one “dark and stormy winter night” (most war stoies start that way….). We took off on a rescue that took us into potential iceing. We were not allowed to depart into known iceing.. but it was always up to the Aircraft Commander… More than once I encountered actual iceing. Since, by thenk, we were flying HH65 Dauphines the tail rotor was pretty well protected both from shed ice and didn’seem prone to iceing. The main rotor oblades would ice and just about the time I would be getting ready to turn back the blades would shed…usually asymetrically but with one blade shedding the rest usually followed suit. With the tough blades and rotor head I never worried about the short lived vibration (I’m also an old Viet Nam Dustoff pilot that has flown a Huey home with a few feet of one blade gone and the other damaged…). Guess the morale of this old pilots rambeling is 1). Unless you are likely to successfully save a human life DON’T screw w ice but…2). If you are willing to accept/explain some airframe damage and have a modern relatively high tech roror system .. It has been done…. by a few folks…

By: MIke Jasumback

MIke Jasumback — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 02:06:14 +0000

“Most”? Try hardly any! There are like 3 commercially available helos that are FIKI!

By: Avi Weiss

Avi Weiss — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:07:00 +0000

I would think that de-icing would inherently be problematic, as some chunk of ice could break off at wrong angle and hit tail rotor. Be interesting to see how they control that from happening