Training: Playing with Ice in the Spring

摘要

Along with thunderstorms, icing probably strikes more fear in the hearts of pilots than any other risk we face. While there are certainly other factors that can cause pilots problems in flight, none is so likely to be immediately devastating. With this kind of fear, you would think that pilots would avoid icing like the plague, and yet every year pilots crash after encounters with icing. In his January article on icing ("Ice Is Not Nice"), Richard Collins pointed out that while every month of the year except July and August has seen icing accidents, more icing accidents occur in April than, in any other month. With this in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to look at some of the human factors that lead pilots into encounters with icing.