Pitot heater

Fori

Hi there,

I'm a new 146 pilot and just did my first hops.

Yesterday my pitot heater froze.

I was wondering if I have to do something for anti ice and found all those switches.

Is this setup correct for the pitot heat to work? Or am I doing it wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Fori

Andre92

@fori
hello Fori,

That’s correct. Those are the switches to turn on the window and pitot heat and are turned on after engine start. You then leave them on during the entire flight.
Below them are the switches to turn on the ice detection and the wing anti-ice.
Wing and engine anti-ice is usually only turned on when required.
The heaters only require electricity, the anti-ice requires bleed air, which reduces the performance of the engines.

Regards,
Andre

Fori

@andre92 Thanks for the reply. So in that configuration it should have never frozen in the first place? Why did it then :(

plhought

Hi Fori,

There is some confusion here. Your Pitot heater isn't frozen.

The AIR LO TEMP annunciator means the temperature in the wing and tail anti/de-ice air supply ducts is low. This is usually because of insufficient air-flow.

In your picture your ENG AIR supply switches are off - the APU air is not sufficient for ice protection.

It is usually not required to run the inner-wing de-ice at the same time as the outer wing/tail anti-ice. This is because in the decent through icing conditions the engine air flow is usually not sufficient at lower powers.

When flaps are extended beyond flaps 18 then you would utilize the de-ice, along with use of engine air. Speedbrake is handy in this case for keeping engine speeds up sufficient to provide sufficient bleed-air flow.

Just many of the plates you have to spin/juggle flying a 146/RJ!