A Pilot's Guide to Inflight Icing

Module I - Before You Fly

Section: Module Overview

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To effectively manage the risks of flying in icing conditions, you must know enough about icing to anticipate when and where it may be encountered and how it can affect your aircraft.

Recent advances have greatly improved our ability to predict when and where icing will occur. However, icing is still difficult to predict. If you fly in icing conditions, you cannot rely solely on forecasts to avoid serious icing encounters. Because you cannot always avoid icing, you must understand how it can affect your aircraft.

Preflight planning

Preflight planning

Ice on wing leading edge

Ice on wing leading edge


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In this module, we discuss how environmental factors and aircraft equipment and design can affect your ability to fly safely in icing; and, we discuss how to use weather products to efficiently plan for flight in icing conditions.

By visualizing the potential for icing along your route and understanding how it can affect you, you can develop a flight-specific icing strategy on the ground and you can make better operational decisions if you encounter icing in the air.

Preflight planning

Expanded wing boots

Ice on wing leading edge

Auto-cycle activation