Newsstand - SK First in Europe to use infrared deicing

http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=112938&src=0

/noticias.info/ SAS Ground Services Norway AS (SGS Norway) is to be the first ground handler in Europe to test out infrared deicing of aircraft. A hangar for infrared deicing is currently being rigged up at Oslo Airport.

Together with Radiant and Oslo Lufthavn AS, which owns and runs Oslo Airport, SGS Norway will test out the use of infrared heat waves to deice aircraft.

Aircraft deiced by this method taxi through a specially built hangar in which snow and ice are removed by heat waves. Infrared deicing reduces runoff of the chemical glycol by around 70%.

"It is part of our strategy of testing new products within ground handling, so that we can offer our airlines more efficient, economic and environmentally friendly products in the future," says Ola H. Strand, Managing Director of SGS Norway.

The deicing hangar is expected to be taken into use for testing early next year and will supplement standard deicing for the rest of the winter season.

"Oslo Airport is a modern airport and considers it only natural to adapt to our customers' new ways of thinking. We consider the reduction in chemical runoff provided by the new method to be a positive factor and see this as a valuable contribution to our work on looking after the environment at the airport," says Nic Nilsen, Managing Director of Oslo Lufthavn AS.

"We have had good experience in the USA and are looking forward to starting up infrared deicing in Europe. We are pleased that SGS Norway and Oslo Lufthavn are positive towards taking this new method into use," says Svein Utkilen of Radiant.

Interesting. I wonder what is the cost and processing time differences for deicing this way vs. the more standard ways.

Putting "infrared aircraft deicing" into Google a bunch of pages comes up, mostly with research done within the last 10 years which seems to suggest that it takes way too long to deice aircraft this way:

Canadian research synopsis (http://www.tc.gc.ca/tdc/projects/air/f/9326f.htm)

A little more detail (http://www.tc.gc.ca/tdc/projects/air/f/9326a.htm)

(both links to the "Transport Canada - Transportation Development Center)

Quote from the last link:
[...]
The time to deice an entire wing of wet snow or frozen precipitation using the ICE CAT infrared deicing system was not operationally viable. Trials to examine the system's effectiveness for frost removal were recommended.
[...]

Didn't find anything about the costs, but it seems to be financially viable, although it seems to me that this is one more field test to see if this way to deice works in first place - more like basic research without to much pressure to keep the costs low.

David

I understand the motivation to spill fewer chemicals into the ground and I'm all for it, but there's a common phenomenon in the IT world that may apply here. That's the tendency to compare the preliminary lab results of a new concept with whatever's in general use today, not with where today's methods will advance to by the time a new concept is in use. What we have to ask is how far chemical de-icing will improve in the next, say, three to five years - in terms of cost, effectiveness, recovery and reuse, etc., and compare that, not today's materials and processes, with infra-red.

I'm not saying IR will never be viable, in ten years we may wonder why anyone ever did that messy liquid thing, but we have to look to the future as we compare it with chemical methods and recognize that they're not standing still either.