Articles with tag: "flight safety"

1. Conclusions of the Porter Perkins Series

   "our knowledge of aircraft icing and the penalties associated with it has not changed substantially in the last forty to fifty years" ¹

   

   From NACA-TN-1586. I believe that this is Porter Perkins, circa 1946.

   Summary

   The three areas of the many and varied contributions of Porter Perkins are reviewed.

   Discussion

   I will focus on three areas of Porter Perkins' publications:

   • Foresight about supercooled large drop (SLD) icing
   • A shift in instrument calibration
   • Contributions to the Appendix C icing regulation

   Foresight about supercooled large drop (SLD) icing

   I am not sure that I agree with the quote at the top (from 1993) now. A lot of things have happened in three decades.

   Perkins and Rieke ¹ foreshadowed in 1993 the potential effects of large-size water-drop icing conditions, now commonly termed supercooled large drop (SLD) icing:

   [Emphasis added]

   Protection from "Severe" icing encounters is not possible by definition. Likewise, there is little …

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2. Porter Perkins Flight Safety Publications

   "Most, if not all of the recent accidents on record having icing as the probable cause could have been prevented if the flight crews understood the serious nature of the situation and had applied appropriate corrective action." ²

   Summary

   Three publications on flight safety by Porter Perkins are reviewed.

   Discussion

   These publications are copyrighted. The first one, however, has a reuse license, and so much of the discussion will center on it.

   "Tailplane icing and aircraft performance degradation" 1992 ¹

   Ice on the tailplane (horizontal stabilizer) was identified as a risk on some aircraft:

   Although the sensitivity of airplanes to inflight icing has been recognized for many years and can be minimized by ice protection systems, the advent of the medium-altitude turboprop commuter transport aircraft has resulted in renewed attention to the icing problem. This review of icing has been prompted by several recent accidents that apparently were caused by …

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3. Porter Perkins

   "As the demand for all-weather protection on aircraft for unimpaired and continuous commercial and military service developed, the detrimental effects of ... icing on airplane performance became increasingly important" (1948)

   

   From NACA-TN-1586. I believe that this is Porter Perkins, circa 1946.

   Summary

   Porter Perkins published on icing topics for over 50 years while at NACA, NASA, and other groups.

   Biographies and Memorials

   Porter J. Perkins is a senior aerospace engineer working in aviation safety as manager of airworthiness of research flight activity at the Lewis Research Center of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. He has specialized in research on aircraft icing for more than 25 years. His in-flight measurements to characterize icing clouds were later incorporated into U.S. icing protection certification standards. He has authored or co-authored more than 25 reports in the field of aircraft icing, and continues to participate in …

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