Pitot heat not thawing ice

[Piper_EEWL]

Hi guys,

I did a flight this morning from EDMG to LIDA. This route involves crossing the Alps and thus involves some high atlitudes. While flying at FL120 the temperature outside was about -1C (30F) I flew through a cloud which caused the ASI to drop to zero. Well stupid me I didn't have the pitot heat turned on. So I turned it on and continued the flight. ASI would not come back. I did not fly through any more clouds. While decending to LIDA the ambient temperatures eventually climed to 12C (54F) but even though I kept the pitot heat on the ASI remained dead. So I landed judging the speed by feel and parked the plane. Before I shut everything down I rechecked the pitot heat (did a check during the walkaround) and it still worked.

I left the aircraft parked for two hours for the return flight and guess what. The ASI still didn't work. So I rejected the take off, taxied off the runway, shut everything down, went to the select aircraft menu, selected the 172, swichted back to the 182 and tried again. Now the ASI suddenly worked.

So I'm a bit puzzled here. Is this a bug? Certainly the ice would have thawed with the pitot heat on for 30min of flying time an about 2h parked in mild temperatures.

[Welsch]

I have encountered that phenomenon in the past as well, and not only the C182 (e.g. the C172 can be affected as well).

Nothing wrong according to the maintenance hangar, yet the ASI will not work anymore after an ice encounter. So far it was always triggered by genuine icing that was not countered instantly by switching on the pitot heat. If I allow the blocked state to persist for a while (because I was AFK at the time, or fiddling with something else on the plane), there is a chance this blocked state will become permanent, and no amount of pitot heat or spending time at non-freezing temperatures will unblock it anymore. There must be something in the blocking code that allows it to get stuck in some cases.

When it happens to me now, I think of it as bug and just reload the plane in-flight... so I can have my airspeed indication back for landing.

[AKar]

I have also had this happening.

-Esa

[Lewis - A2A]

Hey guys, heads up we are investigating our end to see if its an issue with anything our end. Thanks for the report

thanks,
Lewis

[Piper_EEWL]

Thanks for the heads up Lewis and hopefully you can find the culprit.

Happy flying

[EnDSchultz]

I don't suppose you guys are using Active Sky? I have long suspected it's an incompatibility of some sort but I guess we'll wait to hear back from A2A since they're investigating now.

[Piper_EEWL]

Yep Akitve Sky Next is providing my weather. Forgot to mention that above.

[Welsch]

Active Sky Next user here as well.

[AKar]

I recall meeting the issue before I was using ASN (likely FSGRW back then). I could remember wrong, though.

-Esa

[wallydog]

This maybe something to try. I currently use AS16 in P3D v3.4 and have noticed the pitot heat issue. What I've discovered is that the pitot heat will work to restore the airspeed gauge upon reentering a cloud layer (maybe with precipitation) or staying within the same cloud formation that caused the pitot tube to freeze over in the first place. Leaving the cloud layer and turning on the Pitot Heat does nothing but upon reentering clouds with Pitot Heat active, airspeed indicator is shortly restored. Try it and post results. Hopefully this is helpful for the devs as well.