Icing Conditions?

[Magic Zach]

Is icing in DCS? If so, I haven't seen it or encountered it, to my knowledge. If it is, this thread can be deleted. If not...

 

Screenshot from DCS: P-51D Manual:

Also, 15C is 59F, not 16F. Needs to be a - there, but eh, people will figure it out

So, icing? Yes? No? Maybe? I didn't put this in the P-51D section because icing applies to all aircraft.

[Art-J]

Yes for instruments in all modules and engine intakes in the Mi-8 (at least, don't know the other aircraft), no for the warbird carbs, no for the wings, rotors and everything else.

[Vitormouraa]

Yes, as Art-J said, it's in the game, although it's partially simulated.

[Magic Zach]

Well...aside from pitot tubes freezing.

I think it would be a neat to have icing at some point. It isn't needed, but it would go along well with other weather effects, (rain on canopy, reflectivity when wet, mud maybe).

But it would be nice if we actually had to change the way we fly and adapt to different weather conditions. Icing may slow climbing, rain may distort vision outside the aircraft. The KA-50 has a useless wiper right now.

I'm actually getting quite off point here...

Edited September 7, 2017 by Magic Zach

[flyco]

It certainly would be nice to have. As a military pilot, icing was something that really scared me. Having your only engine fluctuating after a 20k climb through solid cloud is a real pucker-factor.

 

That said, it would be a very complicated thing to simulate and would have to take into account weather conditions as well as different airframes and engines. I could think of more sought after effects.

 

Finally, as mentioned, it is there in the form of blocked static and pitot inputs.

[QuiGon]

There was much talk on canopy icing when the MiG-21 came out, because the code for that was written and implemented, but was deactivated because it lacked a visual representation which has been removed. They said they need to write new shaders to reimplement it, but nothing has been heard since then.

 

See developer quotes below:

 

I’ve noticed some possible bugs concerning Canopy freezing and Pitot system freezing

 

During flight in atmosphere in icing conditions (as stated in manual: temperature is between 0oC and -10oC (32F / 14F) while your IAS is between 400 - 500 km/h) with both Pitot tube heaters off (CL74 & CL75) as expected I’ve noticed reading discrepancies for altitude, IAS, TAS and M (all eventually went to 0) but little to no discrepancy with reading of vertical speed values. Additionally I’ve lost reading od AOA (needle stuck at 0 position)So:

 

Bug no.1 Freezing conditions are present in game when temperature is between 0oC and +10oC not as stated in manual -10oC (misprint)

 

Bug no.2 AoA is affected by freezing but needle goes to 0 deg instead of freezing at current AoA reading for example 8 deg.

 

After this I tried to see what will happen if only aux. Pitot heater or main Pitot heater system will be on (CL75 only or CL74 only). As previously I lost all mentioned readings but switching Pitot tube selector lever (CU44) to auxiliary or main position (in second case) did not remedy situation – I still didn’t have readings and I should have them in one of the Pitot systems.

 

Bug no.3 auxiliary Pitot tube heating and main Pitot tube heating seem to be serially connected to both main and auxiliary Pitot systems.

 

As far as Canopy freezing is concerned I was not able to experience it at all. Instead of this I’ve noticed that ASP-PFD shut down itself (no piper and fixed net present, no backlight on ASP whatsoever) Using Anti-icing system lever (deicing front cockpit) did not help. After accelerating to unfreeze ASP switched back on itself. It also came back on when only both Pitot heaters ( CL74 and CL75) were switched on

 

Bug no.4 Pitot freezing effect seems to be somehow wired to ASP power supply.

Bug no.5 Not able to get Canopy freezing at all.

Noted, thank you.

 

Bug no.1 - manual is correct, tested, confirmed

 

Bug no.2 - debugged, main and aux Pitot are separated. UUA will nevertheless show around 0 degrees if DUA is frozen.

 

Bug no.3 - debugged, main and aux Pitot are separated.

 

Bug no.4 - ASP depends on Pitot for some calculations.

 

Bug no.5 - Effect is implemented, unfortunately lacking visual representation. I hope this will be available someday.

 

Everybody saw hypoxia effect... we are talking about canopy icing... snow on windows... not blur on cockpit instruments.

The code implementation is present; but the visual effect is temporarily removed. It will be added at a later date.

 

Icing -- a ways off (new shader needs to be written)

Edited September 8, 2017 by QuiGon

[firmek]

I've run into icing warning and de-icing automatically turning-on in Mi-8. But that's the only module where I had experienced icing effects.

I always thought that turning on the pitot heating is more of role-playing so to say as due to not being simulated in DCS it doesn't have any effect. How to test it? Not turning on the pitot heating and flying high should be enough or it's also required the temperature is low and humidity high enough? IRC the L-39 manual mentioned that pitot heating should be turned-on while on the ground when ambient temperature is below +5C.

[Art-J]

^ The way it's modelled now, pitot freezing problems seem to be more often noticeable at medium (clouds) and low altitudes. Fastest way to test it - do some takeoffs, patterns, approaches and landings on winter map with heating off and enjoy airspeed indicator suddenly going bonkers or not updating readouts at all.

[QuiGon]

Yeah, pitot icing is implemented in pretty much all modules AFAIK.

Rotary icing is also implemented on some (all?) helicopter modules.

[Magic Zach]

I realize that icing is represented through pitot freezing, but I'm trying to get at more dangerous situations, like ice on the wings and maybe the intakes get blocked by it. I'd like to pull the cold air of the carb to unrammed as appropriate.

Quite simply, icing in DCS is at a limited realistic level atm.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Magic Zach

[Walshtimothy]

6 years on ... nada , zip .... come on ed ... this stuffs important  

[Bremspropeller]

You'll get some canopy icing in the 339 and a bit of sticky pitot fun.

Hopefully the C-130 will finally kick that door open.