Ice Stuck in Spinner

Cpt_Kirk

Cpt_Kirk

En-Route
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Jan 20, 2014
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Location
Georgia
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Ted Striker
Had some ice in the spinner for the first time the other day (Piper Arrow w/ 2-blade). It shook the airplane worse than an unbalanced fan on the highest setting. It was just a matter of the way the prop sat, the amount of rain we've had, and the cold temps over the past week. I've never seen or heard of anything like it.

No one else at the school had either.

We tried our best to get it out in time to make the flight, but it wasn't destined to happen. Next time...

Anyone else ever run into this issue?
 
Just leave the spinner with for 2 blade prop resting horizontally so water doesn't collect.
 
Heating up antifreeze or windshield washer fluid, or deice fluid if you're fancy and pouring that might do the trick.
 
Had the same thing happen but on a car, not a plane. Citroen GS, air cooled engine, spinner on the cooling fan. From slush that froze when I stopped in very cold weather at a grocery store that was, luckily, only a couple of blocks away from the house. Very impressive imbalance.
 
Yeah ice forms in all kinds of places when you leave aircraft outside. That's why my aircraft are hangered. I've preflighted helicopters during the winter that ice had formed in the turbine blades. Can't turn the blades backwards. Flight cancelled.:sad:
 
James331 said:
Just leave the spinner with for 2 blade prop resting horizontally so water doesn't collect.
Click to expand...

Say again? We have a club rule to leave our PA-28s with the props vertically, not horizontally, to promote drainage. Seems to work! -Skip
 
Hope the spinner or back plate doesn't crack out next month; that is a huge amount of G-force on them.
 
Skip Miller said:
Say again? We have a club rule to leave our PA-28s with the props vertically, not horizontally, to promote drainage. Seems to work! -Skip
Click to expand...

Lol, I have no idea how that one happened. But yeah, that, with the hole facing down for drainage.
 
James331 said:
Lol, I have no idea how that one happened. But yeah, that, with the hole facing down for drainage.
Click to expand...

No I'm confused... Granted I'm not (due to many years away from the SE prop business) an expert on SE prop aircraft, but it was our sop to leave it horizontal for two reasons... First, it would help guard against water entry (although I do understand how vertical will help drain). Second it would help deter birds from building nests in the cowl.
Now, both those may be fallacies, but the school I worked at believed in those theories.
 
36 year owner of a pa28-181 here. Had the same ice in prop spinner early on and learned to keep the prop vertical to avoid the ice accumulation. It has worked ever since. This is also the practice of almost every SEL 2 blade at my northeastern airport in the winter. Other seasons I leave it horizontal or oblique.
 
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Kritchlow said:
No I'm confused... Granted I'm not (due to many years away from the SE prop business) an expert on SE prop aircraft, but it was our sop to leave it horizontal for two reasons... First, it would help guard against water entry (although I do understand how vertical will help drain). Second it would help deter birds from building nests in the cowl.
Now, both those may be fallacies, but the school I worked at believed in those theories.
Click to expand...

A horizontal prop would have to be right against the cowling to even begin to discourage nesting. Birds will crawl through tiny openings to get inside airplanes. You have to completely close off everything to keep birds out. Foam rubber cut to shape and stuffed into things, with red tape on it so it doesn't get missed.

I put mothballs in a scrap of rag, tie it shut, and hang it in my cowling. Birds hate that stink.
 
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