New Ice Gauge

[Tom Goodrick]

There is icing in FS9 but you have to make it yourself. You have to set up "Advanced Weather" specifying "severe icing" and set clouds and precip with temperatures that support icing. You can duplicate realistic icing with mif level clouds containing ice that you climb through, stay above or stay under, or set the worst case where icing occurs from the ground up to a high level like 9,000 ft. It works best if you set this for the entire world rather than for one station as an aircraft flies through the weather near one station pretty quickly.

The gauge I made shows the pounds of ice that have accumulated while flying. It works with any aircraft. It measures total weight minus total fuel when on the ground (no ice) and then, during flight, measures that weight difference again and subtracts the value measured on the ground. The result is the amount of ice that has accumulated. As an example, when I took off in a Rockwell Shrike and flew at 3000 ft in a region where there was icing to 9,000 ft, I accumulated 27 lbs of ice in two and a half minutes. Other effects of ice are loss of prop efficiency and loss of airspeed and altitude as total pressure and static pressure holes get blocked. Obviously, this is not a gauge for real aircraft which cannot weight themselves in the air. But it helps us sim pilots know when we are in ice so we can take steps to deal with it - climb when you can or else head for the shed.

Here's the code:

<Gauge Name="Ice Gauge" Version="1.0">
<Image Name="Box.bmp" ImageSizes="64,48"/>
<Element>
<Position X="14" Y="11" />
<Visible>(A:Circuit general panel on, bool)</Visible>
<Visible>(G:Var2) 0 == (A:Avionics master switch, bool) &&</Visible>
<Select>
<Value>
(A:SIM ON GROUND, bool) if{ (A:TOTAL WEIGHT, pounds) (A:FUEL TOTAL QUANTITY WEIGHT, pounds) - (>L:LGBASE, pounds) }
</Value>
</Select>
<Element>
<Text X="40" Y="14" Bright="Yes" Length="5" Font="Arial" Color="#00FFFF" Adjust="Center" VerticalAdjust="Center" Multiline="No" Fixed="No">
<String>%((A:TOTAL WEIGHT, pounds) (A:FUEL TOTAL QUANTITY WEIGHT, pounds) - (L:LGBASE, pounds) -)%!5.2f!</String>
</Text>
</Element>
</Element>
<Element>
<Position X="11" Y="32" />
<Element>
<Text X="50" Y="12" Bright="Yes" Length="8" Font="Arial Bold" Color="#114444" Adjust="Left" VerticalAdjust="center" Multiline="No">
<String>Ice Lbs</String>
</Text>
</Element>
</Element>
<Mouse>
<Tooltip>Percent Power</Tooltip>
</Mouse>
</Gauge>

(Note in the 5th line the two & signs must be typed followed by "amp;" in the text version.) Copy this text version into a file "Ice.txt" and save it. Then change then "save as" the file with the extension ".xml" and save that separately. That becomes the usable gauge file. It is a stand-alone gauge you can paste anywhere on any panel.

[Tom Goodrick]

For the DC-3 drivers out there, I tested the Ice Gauge on a DC-3 in my standard icing condition. (Send me an email and I'll send you the situation). I like flying the -3 but don't get to it very often. This was the first plane I really crashed because of ice. i have had trouble landing the ice-laden Skylane and Shrike but that was due to bad visibility and poor handling. You end up flying these planes close to stall on final approach. Roll control gets a little iffy and wind changes on final make it challenging. I don't like anything easy!

With the DC-3 I thought I could climb above the ice and make a normal cross-country flight until I had a icy approach at the other end. But I accumulated 680 lbs of ice and could not climb above 7,000 ft (needed to get above 9,000 ft) so I decided to turn back. As it turned out the distance back to my starting airport with its nice ILS was too great. I accumulated 1,120 lbs of ice during the return. As I was maneuvering to get close to the ILS I saw that the autopilot had the trim full up and we were getting near stall. I took manual control and dropped below 1800 ft where the accumulation of ice would stop. But it was too late. I was near the ILS and lined up but the plane just started settling to the ground. It would have been survivable if there had been a nice open field. But I hit a house about a mile from Runway 9 at Aurora IL (KARR) just west of Chicago.

The only two other landings I've made with ice-laden craft at least were technically not crashes. I managed to fly the Shrike 2 hours from Aurora to Rochester, MN and dropped it rather firmly on the runway with 162 lbs of ice while working to stay over the runway in a bit of a crosswind on runway 13. (Surface wind is 7 kts from 070 but is veering and decreasing the last 500 ft.) I did not manage to have the Landing Speed gauge set for that one but the mechanics had work to do on the gear.

While returning with 80 lbs of ice to Aurora in the Skylane I made nice comfortable landing on the taxiway next to runway 9, stopping right in front of the tower.