One of my old flight instructors always told me that if you look at the ice on the wing you can double it and thats about what you'll find on the tail for what its worth

 

Pilot education of tailplane icing is definitely worth the time.
A few years ago NASA came out with several videos discussing icing. They dedicated one video to tailplane icing.
Here's a link to the video on part135.com.
NASA Tailplane Icing

The video itself is very well done. It's a sobering 23 minutes.

Hog

 

Look guys if we were speculating a drunk crew, thats one thing but we are all educated pilots and talking about it helps, it appears that ICING is a BIG factor here. I am not saying we should be insensitive but jeez c'mon lets be realistic everyone who was flying topday was talking about what MIGHT have happened, not what did, but what might have happened.

 

Good article regarding icing

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/sa11.pdf

 

I`m not speculating either....too soon to do that, however. I recall that the DC9 and in the Mad Dog, when de-icing was selected. every so often (15 minutes, I think) the de-icing would shift to the tail and when it was turned off, it automatically deiced the tail again. Another observation...the 400 wing looks way too small. I know new planes have smaller and smaller wings due to computer designs plus some magic thrown in...wonder what the wing loading on the -400 is?

 

It's not something I remember from any of my training, we may have talked about it, but it certainly wasn't anything we mulled over for a long time as I don't remember it. Either way, better learning about it late than never. Do you suggest any good reading material that I can use to further educate myself on this? I try and take my job as seriously as I can, and I realize I have a lot of responsibility so I have no problem admitting to not knowing something. My grandfather told me once that "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." I want to be the old one.



So I was also doing some snooping around, and apparently back in December of 1989 out in Washington state, there was a United Express prop plane that went down as a result of icing, and it sounded from what information I could gather similar to what we are talking about here. It's United Express 2415 I think it was. Here is a link to the NTSB about it.

DCA90MA011

 

Thanks for that

 

Why exactly does the tail pick up more ice? Its running in the clear well above the fuselage. It seems that it should accumulate ice in the same proportion to the rest of the airplane.

Furthermore, to recover, you are supposed to pitch up. However, if the tail is stalled anyway, depending on the depth of the stall there may be little authority left with which to push the tail down. Retracting flaps makes sense from the viewpoint that the center of pressure is forced forward as compared to its relative aft position when flaps are extended. The forward CoP puts more weight on the tail helping to push it down. Reducing thrust could work, but this is more a factor of where the engines are located relative to the lateral axis right? On a rear engine mounted A/C (not the Q, I know) with a T-tail, adding or reducing thrust would have little effect on pitch besides merely airspeed changes resulting.

 

The news is reporting a British Airways plane has crashed. Looks like only minor injuries, thank God. What's with all of these crashes lately?

 

Fatty,

The ATR accident was an uncommanded aileron reversal due to ice build up beyond the reach of the (wing) boots, not tail. The ATR had transversal boots instead of annual boots. The way the system worked lured you into a false sense of security that you had an anit-ice system and not a de-ice system.

Changes were made to the physical boot itself. They were elongated. Recovery procedures were changed. Heavy ice, get out of it, no auto pilot and if you had an un-commanded roll you were to add flaps to increase the chamber of the wing.

While on approach to STL one evening in conditions much like BUF, an ATR crew (friend and coworker) almost went in on about a 4 mile final. They had just selected flaps and got a tail stall. Recovered as in above posts, with retracting flaps up, etc. Ironically this is just the opposite of a stall recovery as well as the opposite of un-commanded roll reversal. (Lots to think about!)

Since moving to turbojets, my experience is that the airflow and ramrise temperature is much different to the characteristics of icing. You still have to worry about icing but not nearly as much. I have been in icing conditions that were to me in a turboprop moderate to severe with a DC9 in front and behind calling a trace of ice. I've seen just the opposite when I'm in a jet seeing a trace with turbo-props calling much greater.

Not saying what Colgan flight encountered but it sure seems as if they had a tail stall especially after hearing (the NTSB) that they just selected Flaps 15 and started to oscillate in both pitch and roll axis. Sounds like they attempted to retract flaps and gear but it was too late.

Thoughts and prayers to the Colgan family, crew and passengers aboard.