Two new online icing education courses were released this winter, one from King Schools and the other by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Foundation (ASF). Both offer a useful introduction and refresher on preparing for icing conditions and dealing with ice-related problems. The ASF course is oriented more toward pilots flying light airplanes with limited anti- or de-icing protection systems, while the King course meets initial and recurrent training requirements for pilots flying commercially.
The ASF course uses animation to highlight the teaching. For example, a video shows the view from a light airplane cockpit while flying from an area of good visibility into a rainshower that cuts visibility to zero. Other graphics effectively illustrate frontal movement, as warm air pushes over colder air or vice versa and how that can cause icing conditions. One animation clearly captures de-icer boot inflation, while another shows how temperature inversions can cause icing problems as snow falls through warm then cold layers of air.
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