YES There IS ICING in FS9

[Allen Peterson]

But you are getting a lot of reads, Tom. As for me I've been busy finishing GAAR (2 planes) and getting my going home flights planned. I'll put your ICE gauge on all three, an Apache flying the western route that will go over Iceland and Greenland, the P-38 flying the northern route that will go over the Aleutians, and a B-26 flying the southern route that will go over McMurdo and Palmer stations. I might get some ice on those.

[Andrew Godden]

Tom, et al,

I was trolling through flightsim.com over the weekend, in between some admin work on the GAAR and flying a few Legs when I came across a recently developed ice gauge (icev10.zip) by Charles (Dutch) Owen.

My first thoughts were: "Has someone taken Tom's code, created the gauge and put it up on the site, whilst claiming credit." - OK, so some times I can be a little suspicious.

Anyway, if nothing else, I thought it might be of interest.

[Tom Goodrick]

No the code's not the same. His code was referenced in the thread hear on "Icing in FS9 ... Not!" but his code sums up all the payload and seems to be oriented toward the DC-3. My code is simpler. It works with any aircraft and any payload but looks at the total weight minus fuel before takeoff and thenchecks this value again in the air where any change in that value must come from addition of ice.

You guys should note that icing does not simply happen in FS9. You have to put it there with special/custom/advanced weather. That process is a little flawed. It took me a few tries to get it right for one situation near Chicago. I tried a quickie last night but it was inconsistent as to what altitudes had ice.

Tomorrow I'll post a situation on my web site for you to work with.

Incidentally, the worst aircraft for ice is the DC-3. It is big and collects a lot of ice but climbs slowly when loaded so getting it above the ice can be tough. It is the only one I have crashed so far.

[ridgell]

Hola!
I am wondering about logically detecting ice myself, interesting approach looking for the weight increase. Without looking much further through this newly discovered forum, I take it that there are no FS9 variables for ice. I was looking through AVSIM (they ruined my forum in the upgrade...boo hoo) and while I could not find specifics I was lead to hope there was a variable for pitot icing and perhaps structural icing. If you are trying to compute weights I take it that those variables do not exist? I know I could not find it in the SDK. I will take a try at your program and see if I can get it working. You believe they will add the weight of the ice rather then just impose the results arbitrarily? What I am looking for is conditions to setup windscreen icing. I know how to make the effect, but I am looking for shortcuts for conditions to qualify, rather then building a problem to derive humidity from air density. Just using total temp is not selective enough.

[Tom Goodrick]

I intend to post an icing situation that I developed and used on my web site in a few hours for free downloading. Icing is set up using custom and advanced weather. This can be set up for one station or for all making it global. This is a bit silly but it works for studying the problem. You can set the dry air temperature at various levels and the dew point. These temperatures vary linearly between levels. For ice the dew point should be the same as the dry temp. Also you must establish clouds between certain altitudes. Icing will only occur in the clouds.

The only related parameter I could find in the SDK was a "precipitation" parameter that is a set of binary flags. You can read the number as 2=clear, 4=rain, 8=snow. I saw no value for icing and it did not detect icing when flown in the known icing condition I established. It did not indicate fog and I don't think FS has any hail.

[Tom Goodrick]

I have now posted a file named IcingSit.zip on my web site. To get to that web site, just click on the house icon (for home page) under my photo at left. the file includes the weather for icing in clouds from 2000 ft msl to 9,000 ft msl with snow and poor visibility. It also includes the ICE.xml gauge and a panel.cfg file placing the gauge which fits into my model of the Bonanza V35B which is also downloadable from the web site. Note that this zip file is located just below the file for an ambient temperature gauge in Celsius. The value of this gauge is that it shows the actual outside air temperature with no warming effect from airspeed. This is important to help detect where icing can occur.

The situation places the Bonanza on runway 9 at Aurora, Illinois ready to launch into known icing conditions. In real life, this would be illegal because the Bonanza is not equipped to handle "known" ice. But in reality, many Bonanzas blunder into ice without "knowing it". You will find this a bit of a challende. The goal is to take off and climb above 9,000 ft where the ice will stop building and will gradually come off the aircraft as it cruises. I picked up about 50 lbs. This puts the Bonanza as loaded over gross. If you do not make it above the ice, you must return and shoot an ILS to KARR. To help in that, I have turned on the heads-up approach visualizer showing red squares you fly through to the runway. This is very helpful in approaches in low visibility.

(Did I say it is turbulent and snowing?)

The gauge can move easily to other aircraft that can also try this scenario.

The ultimate goal, if you make it above 9,000 ft, is to fly to Rochester, Minnesota where you can descend into the same mess and land. That is also "interesting."

Have fun!

[Ed Burke]

Allen. no worries about icing in Antarctica, it's the driest continent on Earth and you wont find a cloud that will give you any build up whatever. I wonder if M$ got that right?

Ed

[Allen Peterson]

Ed, it looks like I won't be using it ICE gauge on my going home flights. Most of the flights in areas that might have ice will be long flights, which means I will be re-starting saved flights. Tom says the gauge has a problem with that.
I will be on the look-out for clouds and fog (blowing snow?) on the Antarctic legs.

[Ed Burke]

Allen I might have given you abumsteer with my cloud comment. There is plenty of cloud just no convective cloud. And the temps are so low that there is no way you can pick up moisture. You will have a dry, shiney airplane.

Ed

[Allen Peterson]

OK, thanks Ed. That reminds me, I need to add Tom's ambient temperature gauge to the panel.

[Tom Goodrick]

Today I tried flying the Baron 58 up to a safe cruise level from KARR in the icing scenario. It did not make it. I had 110 lbs of ice at 6500 ft and could not climb safely. My airspeed was down near MCA and not far above stall. I returned and made another one of those successful-with-no-pride-of-ownership landings. I had over 200 lbs of ice starting the approach and was hanging at such a high angle of attack it was hard to see the runway. I probably tagged a couple of lights.

[Allen Peterson]

I was flying my Apache home from Darwin, and on the leg from Bali to Jakarta I went up to 8500 feet. I usually fly it at 6500 feet but I wanted to make sure I could get to Singapore.
I looked out the right front window and it looked like it was fogging up. I then went to the spot view from the front and saw the image, below. The outside air temp was 10.97*C on your IOAT gauge.
It looks like ice to me. I can just see the white stripe that runs from the tail to the nose, but I can't see the word 'Piper' just above the stripe at the nose. I activated the ICE gauge and it showed 815 pounds.
So I turned on the pitot head and went back down to 6500' and the 'white stuff' was gone but the ICE gauge still read 815 lbs. After noting the ElTrim as -0.08 and the AoA as 1.3, I went back up to 8500'. As I was passing through 7000' the stuff started to re-appear and was the same at 8500' as before. At that height the ElTrim was 3.1 and the AoA was 1.9. Everything else seemed normal, air speed, power, etc. I flew on that way for another hour or so, by then the ElTrim was ~2.7 and the AoA was ~1.7, probably due to the fuel being burned off.
So what is the 'white stuff'? It done not show on the 2-d windshield but does show on the 3-d windshield and side windows. That leads me to think it is something in the model, what I don't know.
Tom, this is Bill Lyon's Apache , pa-23, that you worked on back in July of 2007. Can you take a test flight and see if you get the same results?

[ben]

Allen
It's ben a while since I've had a chance to look at the apache,
but a shot I took of ice on the screen I think
is on the 2d window

[Tom Goodrick]

That's very interesting. I think it is in the model. Did you guys set up icing in custom weather? 11 degrees C is a little warm for icing. Was the aircraft in the clouds?

Once ice has accumulated, it takes quite a while to melt.

[Chris Ross]

Using Toms C° gauge I found it needed to be below -10°C before ice started to appear