Wing Anti-Icer

After decades of experiment in many quarters, a simple, practical method of preventing ice formations on plane wings was announced this week by Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. Heat from exhaust gases does the trick. Said Chairman Tom Girdler: "The Catalina long-range patrol bombers have been in production several months equipped with the radically new thermal anti-icer." He gave credit to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics for the original idea and part of its development.

Most effective and widely used device now is a deicer: B. F. Goodrich's "rubber-boot"--a rubber strip fastened in place along the leading edges of the wings. When the pilot shoots compressed air into the boot, it expands and contracts, the ice cracks off. But the addition of the rubber strip increases the wind drag on the plane, i.e., decreases its lift; the strip has to be taken off during the summer months to make it last even as long as two winters; repair jobs are frequently necessary on spots subject to severe strain. A ground check of the entire system is necessary every 50 hours.

In October 1937 two N.A.C.A. engineers patented a continuous system for using exhaust gases to vaporize water in a boiler built around the exhaust pipe. The vapor traveled into a long, perforated pipe inside the front edge of the wing; the condensed vapor drained back into the boiler. The boiler added more weight to the plane, and there was always the leakage danger inherent in any water-circulation system. But this impracticable system was the beginning of last week's new idea.

Early in 1941, spurred on by reports of German developments, N.A.C.A. appointed a committee to study the possibilities of using engine-exhaust heat. Water plays no part in the new system. Instead, air is heated as high as 350DEGF. by the exhaust pipes, is circulated through the wings's leading edges, keeps them at 60DEGF, no matter how far below zero the outside temperature goes. Satisfactory tests in far-northern climates lead engineers to hope that the long search is finished. If so, the U.S. can relax about what was once the No. 1 peril of winter flying.

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