Sneaux next week [Historic snowstorm in southeast Louisiana on January 21, 2025]

efil4stnias said
out of MSY? good to know. He was really looking forward to this trip to DC ( part of a large contingent of college student presidents from across country going to DC )

as for de-icing, first time for me was Denver many years ago and i watched to- even told wife, i think they missed a spot lolololl

There's really only two things that make de-icing really critical. One is if there is enough ice/frozen precipitation on the wings to change the shape of the airfoil and/or disturb the airflow over the wings thus reducing its ability to produce the required lift. And two, taking off at maximum gross weight. Airplanes already need more runway to lift off from airports that are at high density altitudes like at DIA. More weight requires even more runway. Then if the wings' ability to produce lift is reduced due to airflow restrictions, there may not be enough lift no matter how long the runway being used.

There are two kinds of ice that airplanes have to deal with, clear ice and rime ice. Of the two rime ice is much more critical to safe flight. This is because rime ice is much more crystalline and jagged making it much more likely to interrupt the smooth laminar flow of air over the wings. Clear ice is smooth and still allows for sufficient airflow unless it gets to the point that it changes the airfoil enough that the wing cannot produce the lift it was designed to produce.

There are three basic types of de-icing equipment used on airplanes. There are electrically heated boots across the leading edge. There are inflatable boots across the leading edge that can be used to literally crack off the ice that can accumulate when flying through icing conditions. And there is also some older systems that squirt a glycol mixture while in flight. This type is usually seen on propellers to keep ice from building up on the blades and losing their ability to produce thrust. A network of tubes build into the spinner hub sprays glycol onto the running propeller blades.

The best thing for any aircraft in flight is to avoid all potential icing conditions if at all possible. Ice (of any kind) changes the flight characteristics too much on any aircraft to deliberately choose to fly into known icing conditions.