Icing conditions

[tADEUS73]

Guys,

Has somebody used this plane lately in freezing conditions? I do a lot of deliveries in the mountains with the real weather (which is winter now :>) and often have to deal with them. I'm just activating the icing output monitor to check if everything is working in a new plane. And in all of them wing de-ice works without a problem, the value of the wing ice just disappears after activating the right system.

But I seem to be too stupid to activate wing anti-ice correctly in the Saab? I have also tried the manual black buttons and the ONE CYCLE setting, the numbers don't even move.

 

Edited February 23, 2019 by tADEUS73

[N1K]

Is that the visual icing addon?
Can't remember the name of it, but its not part of the LES Saab is it?

You have the system operated correctly, +5*C in visible moisture boots go to continuous and HP Bleeds to Auto, exactly what your pic shows.
Manual push buttons are a back up if the timer fails, or in severe icing where you need extra inflation's during the 150 seconds between boot cycles.

I like the way emergency lights and the locator beacon are already turned on, you must be anticipating the imminent impact 

Edited February 23, 2019 by N1K

[N1K]

I see what you mean now..
You are correct, the boots appear to be aesthetic and not actually functioning as boots as far as XP's logic is concerned

[tADEUS73]

That would be really strange. I have some other planes which weren't updated after 1.30 and the wing de-icing there works without any problems (the values are reduced to zero and you don't lose lift and die :>). Maybe it works if the custom plane had no custom icing mechanic but the update messed it up if they were more complicated?

Any ideas? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to use it safely in winter if the wing anti-ice isn't working. The icing after 11.30 is really aggressive. A 4 minutes descent is enough to kill you (in other planes too).

Edited February 23, 2019 by tADEUS73

[N1K]

How?

To quote Saab
 

Quote

Boot De-Ice system may be inoperative provided: 
a) The aircraft is not operated in known or forecast icing conditions; and
b) Suction hold-down operates normally

Good luck with the climate you described 

[tADEUS73]

What? I'm not sure I understand how the text matches my problem Doesn't it simply list there are conditions when you might turn it off?

I did study the manual. It should work and does work in other planes. This wasn't some crazy polar expedition, the screens were from a landing in Calgary with weather exactly as it is now and the airport isn't closed and planes land there all the time

Either I don't know how to turn it on correctly or it isn't working since 1.30. I really don't believe normal winter conditions should change a popular small airliner into a death trap like this.

 

EDIT: Sorry did somehow omit one part of your post. - the visual icing on the boots is an integral part of the Saab. I didn't add anything

Edited February 23, 2019 by tADEUS73

[N1K]

-- Edit ---

Think it could be a Laminar fault.
Found the datarefs on laminar's website, the boot de-ice is triggering, just the ice might be accumulating far more than it should. I observed it to reset to 0 once it reached 0.3 and the boots activated in their sequence.

The default MD80 and Kingair de-ice boots both triggered an electric wing de-ice instead of boots, hence they cleared it in no time flat.

Edited February 23, 2019 by N1K

[N1K]

What stage of flight was it when it crashed? How fast, I assume it stalled?

[tADEUS73]

It works exactly like in all other planes (both custom and default). It's enough to descend around 5 minutes through cold moisture/clouds/fog on the approach to build up ice, gradually lose lift and crash.

It's all visible when you enable the ice output details in the options. The Saab works here like any other plane since Laminar introduced the new ice mechanics. Even my Cessna 310 works like this.

In the last stage you are also losing stability to the sides. Planes that have de-icing systems most of the time simply reset the wing-ice value when activating them and everything works again. If you are lucky and the temperature is much higher the lower you are there is a possibility to lose some ice and you can see the values getting lower - exactly like in other planes.

For now I will probably report it as bug (have tested it a second time). Luckily there is a workaround. You can assign a key to wing de-ice and it works this way (although being a little bit cheaty, cause it works even in planes that don't have wing de-ice.

Edited February 23, 2019 by tADEUS73

[N1K]

The defaults are all triggering the incorrect type of ice protection (all electric) which is why that is so effective and the saab's boots are not.
It's definitely laminar (i reported it to them anyway), the boots are completely ineffective up until the aircraft is about to stall, real boots shed even thin layers of ice.

[JGregory]

Hi Guys,

I ran into a similar problem yesterday in my work for Laminar.  A user reported that the de-ice gauge in the default Baron was not working.  

Philipp (from Laminar) reworked the ice systems for 11.30.  I spoke to him yesterday and here is the story... In the past the "boot" dataref was aliased to the wing_heat command.  X-Plane didn't really model boot de-icing at all.  That has all changed in 11.30.  We now have true boot de-icing as a separate system.  This will require updates to aircraft that relied on the the old wing_heat command to trigger the boots.    We will incorporate a fix for this in the 1.5.2 update.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Edited February 23, 2019 by JGregory

[tADEUS73]

OK guys, thanks for the great support!

For now I will use the workaround with the hotkey