Manufacturer says icing protection can be retrofitted to four-seat piston twin
Diamond Aircraft is promising full icing protection for its DA42 Twin Star four-seat piston twin in time for the northern hemisphere winter, adding all-weather capability to the European instrument flight rules (IFR) certification it achieved last December. The system will be retrofittable to delivered aircraft.
The company had hoped to provide all-weather capability with the first deliveries this March, says Diamond chairman and chief executive Christian Dries. But it had struggled with alternative icing protection systems before coming up with the solution, which delivers liquid de-icing fluid through porous titanium leading-edge panels on the wing and tailplane.
The system, under the observation of the Austrian civil aviation authority, is in the last six weeks of testing, says Dries, adding that most of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification requirements are being met during the testing process.
The panels have 300 laser-drilled micropores per square centimetre, through which the fluid is expressed under pump pressure for de-icing, or released without pressure for anti-icing. Electrical and leading-edge boot systems were rejected, says Dries, adding that this system will give “several hours” of de-icing or anti-icing in severe icing conditions.
Retrofit is easy, he says, because the delivered aircraft all have removable carbonfibre leading-edge panels that can be replaced by the titanium component. All customers in Europe and North America want the all-weather capability, says Dries.
EASA IFR certification was difficult, says Dries, setting the programme back “four to five months” while software bugs and human factors issues in the DA42’s Garmin G1000 integrated avionics suite were ironed out. The most intractable issue, he says, was lightning protection for the avionics that was good enough to satisfy EASA. The aircraft itself was already lightning-protected, but eventually Diamond and Garmin solved the problem.
By last week the company had delivered 32 of the Thielert Centurion 1.7 turbocharged diesel-cycle DA42s to the European market, says Dries, and Diamond will be upping its manufacturing output from four to five aircraft a week by the end of the year.
The avgas-fuelled Lycoming IO-360-powered version will make its US debut at Oshkosh this month, says Dries. It delivers more power at low level and already has a worldwide engine support network, he says, whereas Thielert is still building the North American support system for its more efficient Jet A1-fuelled diesel version.
David Learmount / London
Source: Flight International
