Meteorology Aircraft Icing
Question :
Summarize the specific aviation-related issues associated with your chosen hazard.
Summarize an actual aircraft incident that illustrates the hazardous impact of your chosen hazard to aviation
Answer :
Aircraft Icing
There are several conditions for icing such as if the air temperature is 0oC or colder. Apart from this, supercooled liquid water droplets also lead to icing. Aircraft icing is a condition when aircraft flies near the top of the cold air mass underneath a deep layer of warm air (Cao et al., 2018). Drops of rain are very large as compared to the droplets of cloud that gives a very high rate of catch. As it reaches freezing temperature, it forms clear ice.
Aircraft icing has a significant threat to aircraft. It may even lead to a crash of aircraft. The concept of aircraft icing is simple because the process contributes to icing but the result of icing and its impact on aircraft is quite complex as well as fascinating. Aircraft engineers, meteorologists, and pilots need to have information about icing because it can significantly and adversely affect the characteristics of flight of an aircraft. Some of the common problems of icing are decreasing lift, increasing drag, as well as control issues. Icing significantly added weight to aircraft but it has also been found that it is a factor generally for the light aircraft. Icing can be classified into four categories based on its severity such as trace, light, moderate, as well as severe (Feng et al., 2019). The impact of each category of icing is different on the aircraft. Aircraft icing significantly affects the performance of the aircraft because it significantly disrupts the airflow around the aircraft. During the process of aircraft icing, ice developed on the wings of the aircraft increases the weight that leads to a decrease or reduction in lift. The icing on the propeller of the aircraft also increases drag as well as reduces thrust that creates an imbalance between the forces that are required to control the aircraft in the air. Due to the imbalance between the forces, it may become uncontrollable and hence it may crash.
References
Cao, Y., Tan, W., & Wu, Z. (2018). Aircraft icing: An ongoing threat to aviation safety. Aerospace science and technology, 75, 353-385.
Feng, K., Lu, Z., & Yun, W. (2019). Aircraft icing severity analysis considering three uncertainty types. AIAA Journal, 57(4), 1514-1522.
Liu, Y., Kolbakir, C., Hu, H., & Hu, H. (2018). A comparison study on the thermal effects in DBD plasma actuation and electrical heating for aircraft icing mitigation. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 124, 319-330.
