Hi All,There are posts way back to ASv6.5 that will tell you about how airframe icing will occur; lowering the airspeed, adding weight to the plane, increasing the stall speed, causing the plane to be sluggish, etc.No, the ice will not be seen on the plane, but the effects will be present.Also, remember that many of you have reduced the effects of icing in your copies of FSUIPC.

I suspect you have just given me the final push to buy the full version of FSUIPC. I have wavered about it for ages, but was just never sure if the additional benefits were worth it. To have realistic parameters and realistic consequences of airframe icing would definitely justify buying it. Sigh - where's my credit card?Thanks JimIan

So, do I really need FSUIPC registered version to get airframe icing? Or does Active Sky simulate it through the unregistered version?

Hi All,The default level of icing is available through the unregistered version of FSUIPC. Yes, you do need a weather program that simulates icing. Also, smaller planes are more susceptible to icing. On one of the FSUIPC registered tabs is the Icing Level option. I don't have FS9 running right now, so I can't quickly check.

It's in the 'clouds' tab of the registered version of FSUIPC; there are four settings available. They range from the zero setting, which is 'no icing', to four, which is 'yes please, I'd like more icing than a wedding cake has on national ice a wedding cake day'. Setting it to three will do everything but the most severe icing effects.Al

It's in the 'clouds' tab of the registered version of FSUIPC; there are four settings available. They range from the zero setting, which is 'no icing', to four, which is 'yes please, I'd like more icing than a wedding cake has on national ice a wedding cake day'. Setting it to three will do everything but the most severe icing effects.Al

Come on Al - set it to level four! I thought you were a macho kind of guy! :( BTW, if anyone wants to read an absolute horror story of severe icing on a DC3 back before WWII read Ernest Gann's "Fate is the Hunter." IMHO that book is one of the great classics of aviation writing.

Actually, I do have it set on the insane '4' setting.Incidentally, I finally remembered what weather program it was that had airframe icing and then had the feature taken out because people apparently didn't like it. It was Weather Maker Pro. Sadly I lost the downloaded install exe for my copy that I bought some time ago in an HD crash, and whenever I emailed their support forums to try and solve the problem, they never got back to me, so I can't really check to see whether it ever had the feature put back because I don't have the thing any more, which is a bit of a bummer as it was a pretty good program from what I recall.Al

Actually, I do have it set on the insane '4' setting.

Using this setting, have you ever experienced airframe icing in FS9 then? What weather parameters need to be present for it to occur? Snow? Rain and cold temperatures? Flying in clouds during low temperatures?

Incidentally, I finally remembered what weather program it was that had airframe icing and then had the feature taken out because people apparently didn't like it. It was Weather Maker Pro.

I found Weather Maker Pro (by Calibre Software) on simMarket for about $10. It says, "The new Enhanced Icing Engine (EIE) is an engine that monitors the conditions and will begin to cause your plane be adversely affected by icing if you do not have your de-icing on." So, apparently they put the icing feature back in. Do you think I could use this program in conjunction with Active Sky?Thanks,Doc

Come on Al - set it to level four! I thought you were a macho kind of guy! :( BTW, if anyone wants to read an absolute horror story of severe icing on a DC3 back before WWII read Ernest Gann's "Fate is the Hunter." IMHO that book is one of the great classics of aviation writing.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but the movie "Fate is the Hunter" starred Glenn Ford, if I remember correctly. The plane crash I remember was due to one engine exploding shortly after take-off. Then the 2nd engine showed fire and the pilot attempted a landing on a beach & colliding with a pier. What caused the alarm for the 2nd engine was due to the captain having a cup of coffe place on top of an electrical box and after the first engine exploded, the coffe spilled into the electrical box causing a short and erronously lighting the fire warning light on the good engine. Thinking both engines had failed, the good engine was shut down and the emergency landing was attempted. I don't remember any icing causing the crash. Again, I may be wrong, but I was young and loved that movie. I'll have to see if I can find it from Netflix.Jim D.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but the movie "Fate is the Hunter" starred Glenn Ford, if I remember correctly. The plane crash I remember was due to one engine exploding shortly after take-off. Then the 2nd engine showed fire and the pilot attempted a landing on a beach & colliding with a pier. What caused the alarm for the 2nd engine was due to the captain having a cup of coffe place on top of an electrical box and after the first engine exploded, the coffe spilled into the electrical box causing a short and erronously lighting the fire warning light on the good engine. Thinking both engines had failed, the good engine was shut down and the emergency landing was attempted. I don't remember any icing causing the crash. Again, I may be wrong, but I was young and loved that movie. I'll have to see if I can find it from Netflix.Jim D.

I think that is a different story - I vaguely remember something about it. I don't think they made a movie of Fate is the Hunter - it really follows the real-life journey of the author starting out as a lowly copilot on the DC2 and ends after WWII with him flying DC4's. I recommend it highly - it is superb story-telling.

Well, I did buy FSUIPC after all these years. After setting up all the options including setting icing at the recommended level 3, I set up a rainy day at KPDX with surface temps well below freezing, heavy rain and clouds with all icing options set to severe. Got my trusty Aeroworks Kingair, as it has comprehensive anti-ice/de-ice systems and droned around at 5000 feet in cloud with all anti-ice systems turned off except pitot heat. I couldn't detect any change in the aircraft's performance. I'll keep fiddling with it all and trying, but it certainly wasn't the quick fix I had hoped for.I'm certainly not questioning the truth of what we've been told by very knowledgable people on this forum - I absolutely do beleive them. Just saying that my previous experience of having never experienced any detectable influence of icing in FS has so far continued in spite of buying the registered edition of FSUIPC.If I have success with this, I will definitely come back to this thread and report it.

Hi, I've been using AS6.5 since its release and I do fly GA planes most of the time... I've never noticed any effect from icing other than the pitot tube freezing - either... If we get AS6.5 setup correctly - will it dramatically raise the stall speed of an aircraft ??? To the point of a crash if left unattended ??? Will aircraft anti-ice systems perform accordingly ??? If anyone can get this to work - I'd love to know how to replicate the setup... Regards,Scott

I think that is a different story - I vaguely remember something about it. I don't think they made a movie of Fate is the Hunter - it really follows the real-life journey of the author starting out as a lowly copilot on the DC2 and ends after WWII with him flying DC4's. I recommend it highly - it is superb story-telling.

I found it on youtube. It was titled "Fate is the Hunter" released in 1964 and the crash occurred as I described it. Maybe the writer of the movie used the same title as the book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoPaZ1ui61YReferencing the book by the same name, the investigator mention "unporting" as the cause of the DC-4 crash, not icing. But I haven't read the book, just this excerpt, so the icing may have occurred earlier in the story: http://rwebs.net/avhistory/fate.htmJim Dow

If you download and use AFSD it will show you the icing weight adding up as you fly. http://hsors.pagesperso-orange.fr/afsd.htmlBTW, many piston aircraft do not have operational airframe deicing, since you need to have extra AIR file sections added. Most of the piston powered default aircraft do not deice for this reason.You must have:Section 1513 - both values = 1Section 1519 - value = 1For prop deice you need Section 1518 - value = 1Just copy and paste from AIR files that do contain them (i.e. Section 1513 from the default DC-3, etc.).Theoretically the movie is based on the book, but the screenwriters changed it so radically that it bears little resemblance to the original. Ernie Gann swore he would never let that happen to one of his stories again, and for Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty he went with John Wayne's Batjack company and got pretty good fidelity to the books.Hope this helps,

Why do you want icing? Does it change style of flying? Except turing on Anti Ice :D

Yes, it does change the style of flying considerably. If you look up American Eagle Flight 4184, which was an ATR-72 that crashed in 1994, in Indiana, you'll note that it was lost owing to flying into unknown icing conditions.A build up of ice, which the de-icing boots could not clear after it flew into freezing rain, caused a severe uncommanded aileron movement which disengaged the autopilot and the aircraft then went through a full 360 degree roll, it then stalled and went into a dive, which was recovered from by the crew, but the aircraft then did the same thing again, and being low down from the first dive, it was too low to again be recovered and crashed into the ground at a speed of nearly 400 mph, killing everyone on board.The accident had a big effect on how the ATR-72 (and some other regional turboprops) is deployed by airlines in the United States; as a result of the crash, most ATRs are not flown in areas where severe icing is thought likely and some airlines went even further than that, notably American Eagle, which moved all its ATRs to the Caribbean. Moreover, the accident itself served to point out how much more at risk regional and GA aircraft which cruise at 20,000 feet or so are in comparison to their higher flying jet brethren, and that's from both wing and tailplane icing, because they spend a lot of time in clouds where freezing rain can be found.In particular, the possibility of tailplane icing does very much change the style of airline flying; it is recommended that pilots of - especially regional turboprops - periodically disengage the autopilot and operate the elevators to ensure that the tailplane has not iced up and had excessive trim applied by the autopilot to counter the problem of an iced up tail surface. If they don't do that check when up high, and instead find that the tail is iced when the tailplane stalls as the flaps alter the angle of attack on the airflow over it, which is likely to occur on finals, then the aircraft will probably nosedive as the tailplane gets forced down into the vacuum under the stalled tailplane, and all that would occur at too low an altitude to make a recovery possible. So it is quite literally a matter of life and death to check for tailplane icing being masked by the use of the autopilot, and pretty standard procedure for regional propliner crews to watch out for it, since they spend a lot of time in the clouds.Al