“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
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:
- email newsletter, subscribers may view drafts
- post at icinganalysis.github.io and icinganalysis.com (mirrored sites) (simultaneous RSS update)
- post notice at mastodon historians.social/@icinganalysis
- post notice on LinkedIn
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
-
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 ↩
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Carroll, Thomas, and McAvoy, William H.: The Formation of Ice upon Airplanes in Flight. NACA-TN-313, 1929. ntrs.nasa.gov ↩