Aircraft-Specific In-flight Icing Forecasts

To many pilots aircraft icing is one of the most dangerous in-flight hazards. To date, icing forecasts have been one-size-fits-all. Aerodynamic icing studies show that different aircraft accumulate ice differently even in the same meteorological environment. Therefore, a generic icing forecast may not be useful to a pilot. To address this situation we use the Percent Power Increase (PPI) needed for an aircraft to maintain its speed and altitude after ice accumulation, a universally applicable and objective quantitative metric for aircraft performance loss, and apply it to ice accumulation for specific airfoils. Using icing components to generate the accumulations and computational fluid dynamics components to analyze the resulting performance loss, we are able to provide aircraft-specific PPI data.

Schneider Electric's icing solution utilizes air temperature, liquid water content, and median volume droplet diameter as input. This input data is then transformed to generate global forecasts from industry leading numerical models. The solution then produces a four-dimensional forecast PPI grid specific for an aircraft type. The aircraft-specific icing information may be used in flight planning components and systems as well as flight following applications. This aircraft-specific icing forecast solution will greatly enhance both flight planning and route optimization as well as flight safety.