http://www.controller.com/listingsdetai ... 185465.htm?

Interesting ad. Kelly needs a Baron for Thermawing STC.

Kelly is a competitor to TKS.

Kelly's approach is to use a heated wing.

Interesting that it has 537 hrs on the airframe and 0 SFOH on the engine. I am sure that some Baron owner may want to consider this trade.

Kellys approach is to either melt the wing or at least a couple sets of 100Amp generators trying to get there .

The 'trade' aircraft probably spent most of its life on a experimental AW certificate and had several iterations of their system put on and pulled off those wings.

The only reason I've held on to my Baron is that no one wanted to trade me their Cessna single for it.

Oh, darn. He wants a newish 58 and I have an oldish 55. Guess I'll have to keep the Baron.

Kellys approach is to either melt the wing or at least a couple sets of 100Amp generators trying to get there .

The 'trade' aircraft probably spent most of its life on a experimental AW certificate and had several iterations of their system put on and pulled off those wings.

Totally agree about the Thermawing: that was a complete disaster on my Columbia 350. That product, coupled with the delays in certification of the G1000 airplane and a hailstorm that damaged about 40 brand-new airplanes that were parked outside the manufacturing facility while waiting for G1000 certification, is pretty much the chain of events that took down Columbia as a stand-alone manufacturer. The Thermawing broke a bunch of alternator belts, killed two alternators (note that the deice system uses one stand-alone 100A alternator, and doesn't share alternators with other airplane electrical systems), went through two controllers and two sets of heaters before I gave up. Ultimately I wound up with TKS, which I like much better because (a) it works, and (b) it looks better.

The comment about having formerly had an experimental airworthiness certificate is almost certainly off base. The only experimental Columbias I know about are the Columbia 400 and Columbia 350 prototypes. The one under the link has a serial number way too far down the line for that, or even for the G1000 certification airplane.

The thermawing is a STC that most definitely changes the shape of the airfoil. To get it approved, the aircraft had to be modified from its certificated specs. The only way that the aircraft was allowed to fly after the developmental thermawing panels were put on it and the point in time the STC was granted was on a 'research and development' experimental airworthiness certificate (this comes with restrictions as 'required flight crew only' ). Once the components are removed, the plane undergoes a compliance inspection to certify that it is in conformance with its original AW certificate and it goes back on that. If the STC is granted the plane also goes back on its standard AW certificate and the addition is covered under the STC.

This is different from 'experimental amateur built'.


Edit:

Just looked up the registration. I was wrong. The plane IS STILL on a experimental certificate.

Airworthiness
Classification Experimental

Category Research and Development
Crew Training
Market Survey
A/W Date 04/02/2010

It is a paperwork exercise to get it back onto its standard certifcate and presumably the seller would do that before the trade. Just something to be aware of when buying an aircraft used for R&D (and make sure the wing-numbers match ).

Has anyone tried to use engine exhaust gases and a heat exchanger to circulate fluid that heats the wings? Why is this not viable? Is there not enough heat? Heat exchangers are not efficient, but considering that our engines lose 60% energy through the exhaust pipe as heat, it works out to about 57 kilowatts is dumped out of the pipe at 45% power on a IO-520. Even utilizing 10% of this energy beats a 100 amp alternator.

There is barely enough heat to keep my feet from freezing at 10,000ft , I dont think there would be enough to feed a huge heat-sink like an entire leading edge.

Even the VLJs that do have bleed-air dont have enough to spare to heat the wing.