Originally Posted by
iPilot
Hey dash 8 guys, does the Q400 have automatic ice systems like most RJ's? I flew the ERJ and it just worked whenever ice was detected. From what I heard from some King Air folks at least, even the new ones have to be manually acuated. The old rule of thumb was to wait until you got a nice amount of icing before activating the boots but now apparently that's not the case. Anyway, my point is the NTSB said 3407 had its icing system activated during the accident. Does that mean the boots are running or that its simply waiting for the computer to decide when its in icing?
The boots are not activated automatically, you have to select them on. There are 3 settings; slow, fast and manual. In slow or fast the boots are cycled automatically. Can't remember the dwell times.