Are you on Xbox, Steam or Microsoft Store version?
Steam
Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?
No
Brief description of the issue:
The way icing is currently modelled is wrong. It looks like black ice you find on the street and on your car in the morning, in-flight icing never looks this way (at least I have never seen this kind of ice in over 10 years of flying into icing conditions). Ice accretion only occurs on frontal areas in real life, radome, wipers, front windshield, probes and antennas, leading edges, landing gear, engine intakes, spinners, propellers. Not on sides of fuselage and cabin windows. I will attach some pictures of real world ice accretion for reference, you can clearly see fuselage and cabin windows remain completely clear.
This is in the release notes: “Rain effect and icing on cabin windows improved”. Icing effect on cabin windows shouldn’t even be a thing! The icing effect on cabin windows is very unrealistic. When selecting windshield heat to ON (if installed), ALL windows are de-iced. Apart from the fact that there shouldn’t be any ice accretion on cockpit side windows and cabin windows in the first place, those windows aren’t even heated…
The only way to get this transparent layer of clear ice on the windshield is to cover the aircraft with a layer of water (on ground) and then drop the temperature below 0C. In-flight supercooled droplets splash or splatter on impact and don’t freeze instantly trapping air inside which gives it a milky appearance. It will never forms in a uniform transparent layer as in FS2020, its usually more like rime ice in texture. I also want to add that icing on the windshield is really rare, even without windshield heating installed or operating.
These are the problems with the current implementation of the current icing effect:
- As described above it doesn’t look right, wrong type of ice, accreting on wrong parts of the airframe like side of fuselage including cabin windows. You will NEVER pick-up any ice on cockpit side windows, cabin windows, side of fuselage, side of vertical stabilizer and directly on top of the wing and horizontal stabilizers in real life.
- If it is snowing, snow (or slush if (airframe) temperature above 0C) should accumulate on the aircraft on ground but no ice will form on the windshields. In-flight there shouldn’t be any ice accretion at all when its snowing. You need supercooled water droplets for icing to form, snow is already solid and therefore won’t adhere to the airframe.
- There is no way of de-icing the aircraft before departure, so even when operating an aircraft approved for flight in icing conditions, you technically can’t take off as there is no way of removing ice, snow, slush or frost from critical surfaces and have a clean airframe before departure. You could change to clear weather and bump the temperature up to 60C, but that is not very immersive.
- I’ve also noticed that the stall warning activates upon reaching (reduced) stalling AOA with ice accretion while in real life (depending on the amount of ice accretion) the aircraft will stall before activation of the stall warning horn or stick shaker. You can’t trust the stall warning and stall protection systems with ice accretion. It would be more realistic to not alter the stall warning activation angle with ice accretion. In other words, stall warning activation always occurs at the clean wing stalling AOA.
Not having any icing effect at all is more realistic and closer to reality than the current implementation of it. Its not so common to built-up large amounts of ice. The only thing needed is ice accretion on the windshield wipers or icing evidence probe (if fitted) to have an indication that you are flying in icing conditions. Icing should be based on the presence of supercooled water droplets in the atmosphere which means:
- Freezing rain, drizzle or fog in the METAR.
- Flight into rain or drizzle in flight with a temperature of 0C SAT or below.
- Operation in visibility lower than 1.6 km (1 mile) including fog and flight in clouds with SAT 0C or below.
Snow or ice crystals are already solid and won’t cause icing, certainly not this uniform transparent layer of clear ice visible on the windshield. In short, three things are required for icing to form: supercooled droplets, SAT of 0C or below and freezing nuclei (airframe).
I didn’t test this yet, but in previous versions the option in the main menu to turn off the icing effect did not work. Did anybody test this already? Otherwise I will give it a go soon…
It would be cool if Asobo could add a de-icing panel. Just selecting Type I, II or IV fluid and a start button, doesn’t need any animations like de-ice trucks spraying the aircraft just a simple panel to de-ice the aircraft and prevent ice to form for x amount of time on ground. Could even use the generic holdover time tables, temperature and precipitation together with visibility to determine holdover time. Then give the aircraft an orange, yellow or green tint depending on fluid used until airborne or end of HOT.
Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:
This is what real world icing looks like:
Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:
Fly into icing conditions.
PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:
Not applicable.