Army Aircraft Icing
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C. Comments (Respondent's experience with icing)
1. Commander and warrants fly into icing at least once a week in the winter.
Has been commander for over two years; a warrant has flown in this environment
for over three years.
3. Limiting the total aircraft weight to 12,500 during icing conditions
hampers our ability to complete our mission.
4. Flights cancelled--routes diverted.
5. Limited. My primary concern is affordability and maintainability. As a
troop commander in 1987, my AH64 a/c were modified with icing detectors and
the anti-ice for main/tail rotors was functional. As a squadron commander in
19992001, all of the a/c have incomplete anti-icing capability. As replacement
blades (not anti-ice capable), we lost a significant adverse weather capability.
Key is a system that AMC can afford to upkeep with Single Stock Fund.
6. Limited to training in icing conditions (severe!) at Fort Riley, Kansas, in
8486 with totally inadequate/non-existent deice capability. One rotation through
JRTC at Fort Polk where icing stopped all training/flights/operations for 72
hours.
9. Moderate. I've flown in moderate icing on half a dozen occasions. Blade
deice and other equipment have always worked as briefed.
12. Mission profile for OH-58Ds requires low altitude flight; very little
impact on mission accomplishment due to icing.
13. As stated in Para A1., we have experienced icing only on a few occasions
here in Kosovo. We have had several missions cancelled due to forecasted icing
at altitude.
15. No experience with icing.
20. Experience: In-flight/on-ground icing during Bosnia/Kosovo deploy-
ments. Precautionary landing in Kosovo requiring NATO ground forces to
deploy to provide aircraft security.
25. The a/c within the 421st command routinely fly in icing conditions
during winter months. Functioning deice and anti-icing systems are a must. We
routinely check our systems even in the summer to keep them functional; how-
ever, when this doesn't happen, systems tend to fail more, especially at the
beginning of the cold/icing season.
31. Moderate--most experience at Fort Lewis, Washington.
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