The Blast from the Past Newsletter

Published: Sat 30 September 2023
Updated: Tue 01 October 2024

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“The greatest of all our problems is ice.”

"The situation changed in the mid-1920s when the intrepid aviators of the U.S. Air Mail Service attempted to maintain scheduled day-and-night operations between New York and Chicago... As one of their pilots noted at the time about the hazards of the New York-Chicago route, “the greatest of all our problems is ice.”" 1

Figure 2 from NACA-TN-313. Sketches of ice formation on wings and wires. (From notes and sketches on numerous flights.)
From NACA-TN-313, 1929. 2

Summary

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Discussion

I have an email newsletter with the latest posts and other site-related news, which you can receive regardless of the weather. Another advantage of subscribing to the newsletter is access to the secret* blog drafts that are in-work, before the public sees them, and access to the secret* newsletter archives. There is no cost to subscribe.

[* Well, not so secret if one is acquainted with github.]

Typical publishing sequence:

Sample newsletter content

Welcome to the "Blast from the Past" Newsletter!
Reviews of the NACA-era aircraft icing publications, 1915 to 1958.

Latest post: Site Improvements https://icinganalysis.com/site-improvements.html

Interesting finds: 

A commenter on LinkedIn pointed me to Kelley Johnson's 1940 "Wing Loading, Icing and Associated Aspects of Modern Transport Design"
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/8.10478. I might add this to the Ice Shapes and Their Effects thread on the blog.

Most popular posts (so far...):

#6: NACA-TN-313, "The Formation of Ice upon Airplanes in Flight" https://icinganalysis.com/naca-tn-313.html
One of the earliest publications I have reviewed, with eye-catching sketches and a great quote.

Upcoming posts:

The reposting of revised posts continues on Mastodon https://historians.social/@icinganalysis (and, less reliably, on LinkedIn).
9/29: A Detailed Comparison of Water Drop Impingement Calculations
10/2: Implementation of multicylinder calculations in Python

Upcoming Aircraft Icing Events:

Submissions for papers open October 3, and close December 13, for the AIAA Aviation Forum, July 29 to August 2, 2024, so get typing!
https://www.aiaa.org/aviation/presentations-papers/call-for-papers#atmospheric-and-space-environments

The SAE AC9C Aircraft Icing Technology Committee meeting is October 23 to 26, 2023.
https://standardsworks.sae.org/standards-committees/ac-9c-aircraft-icing-technology-committee#meetings

Quote of the week: 

“The greatest of all our problems is ice.”
'The situation changed in the mid-1920s when the intrepid aviators of the U.S. Air Mail Service attempted to maintain scheduled day-and-night operations between New York and Chicago... As one of their pilots noted at the time about the hazards of the New York-Chicago route, “the greatest of all our problems is ice.”'
via https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20020066162

What is in work:

Porter Perkins thread draft <<link for subscribers only>>

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Notes


  1. Wesley L. Smith, “Weather Problems Peculiar to the New York-Chicago Airway,” Monthly Weather Review 57 (December 1929): 503–06, quoted in "We Freeze to Please": A History of NASA's Icing Research Tunnel and the Quest for Flight Safety 

  2. Carroll, Thomas, and McAvoy, William H.: The Formation of Ice upon Airplanes in Flight. NACA-TN-313, 1929. ntrs.nasa.gov 

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