Ice Sensor Protects Aircraft

opticsorg writes "Flying in bad weather could soon be safer thanks to a highly sensitive optical ice sensor designed for use on aircraft and helicopters. The sensor can detect a layer of ice that is as little as 100 microns thick."

Comments

1/2 of it

[annisette]

Sounds like a good idea though there is the situation of de-icing the wing and tail surface areas. There are mechanical methods, an air expanding boot on the wing areas and electrical heat methods. I wonder if lasers can be used for this, any flying nerds out there with ideas? ( I mean pilots)

I'd rather not let the ice form

[SLot]

in the first place. Seems these folks are on the
right track:

Platinum Research

If they can bond teflon to aircraft wings, the detectors won't
matter, as ice can't form. :)

This sounds great but...

[TEB]

I don't see it being adopted in the industry.

I worked for a company that developed a system to monitor the aerodynamic performance of an aircraft. It was sensitive enough to measure the degradation caused by frost or dead bugs on the wings. It would have replaced the strictly angle of attack based stall warning systems in use. The system was simple and reliable. It also had a small footprint in the cockpit. The system never sold due to the reluctance of the airlines to adopt systems that add cost to an aircraft and complexity to the cockpit.

A good example would be the collision avoidance systems marketed by a number of companies. These systems have been available for many years. They were not widely adopted until an FAA mandate that all commercial aircraft of a certain size and larger must be fitted with these systems. That happened back in the mid 90's.

I may be wrong (and I hope I am) but I don't believe that there will be a rush to install systems based on this technology unless it's very cheap or the FAA mandates it.