Would you fly IMC <200 knots without static wicks?

Would you fly IMC <200 knots without static wicks?

  • Yes

  • No

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I have flown IMC in an RV-8 with no wicks and it was fine. I have flown an arrow without wicks and have had issues. Anecdotally I have not observed any correlation from aircraft type or construction. I have with weather. If you plan to fly in clouds full of fine ice or other suspended particulate then I would say perhaps worth it.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I have flown IMC in an RV-8 with no wicks and it was fine. I have flown an arrow without wicks and have had issues. Anecdotally I have not observed any correlation from aircraft type or construction. I have with weather. If you plan to fly in clouds full of fine ice or other suspended particulate then I would say perhaps worth it.
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And those are pretty plentiful in benign Florida IMC. :D
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I have flown IMC in an RV-8 with no wicks and it was fine. I have flown an arrow without wicks and have had issues. Anecdotally I have not observed any correlation from aircraft type or construction. I have with weather. If you plan to fly in clouds full of fine ice or other suspended particulate then I would say perhaps worth it.
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Or near clouds filled with ionized energy...
 
I guess I should simplify what I said:

Wicks are for flying through PRECIPITATION. Flying through PRECIPITATION causes an electrical charge build-up on the airframe, which causes problems with RF reception.
 
Flown thru rain several times in the Velocity with no RFI issues. So much rain that it shredded the leading edges of my prop.

No aircraft reacts the same when it comes to RFI and moisture. If it’s a metal aircraft and bonded properly, you probably won’t have issues. If it’s fiberglass and you have a properly sized grounding plate at the base of the antenna you probably won’t have issues. The helicopter I fly has no static wicks and I’ve flown thru rain and snow with no radio issues whatsoever.

Fly through some rain in the testing phase and see how it goes. You get RFI, then throw them on. If not, I’d leave them off...unless you’re like @Seanaldinho and find their looks sexy. :)
 
Velocity173 said:
No aircraft reacts the same when it comes to RFI and moisture. If it’s a metal aircraft and bonded properly, you probably won’t have issues. If it’s fiberglass and you have a properly sized grounding plate at the base of the antenna you probably won’t have issues. The helicopter I fly has no static wicks and I’ve flown thru rain and snow with no radio issues whatsoever.
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That makes sense from the underlying physical principles. The idea with the static wicks isn't so much to discharge the airframe (that will occur anyway during flight, and basically uniformly on a metal aircraft), the idea is to control the location of the discharge. The discharge is almost always a corona discharge (basically St. Elmo's fire for anyone familiar with it) and a corona discharge near your antennas absolutely will mess them up -- corona discharge is not only a wideband RF emitter but will happily charge up nearby structures (such as the antenna itself).

In fact, I'd wager that in cases where the radios roll over then the nav goes dead you might have a pretty significant DC voltage built up on the antennas themselves, via discharge from the antenna tips. RF preamps don't like external DC voltages, especially ones in the hundreds of volts.

Since we also know corona discharges occur at the ends of pointy objects (e.g. static wicks!), it's trivial to move the inevitable discharge to an area of the aircraft where it won't cause any harm. Rather than risk the discharge forming wherever it likes to (once formed it will tend to keep going at that location), I'd personally stick the wicks on just so I know it's confined to those specific areas of the airframe -- away from all my critical nav / radio equipment. :)
 
Salty said:
All three major manufacturers of metal single engine piston planes are putting wicks on their certified offerings. This may be a case of $1000 now to avoid frivolous litigation in the future, but I'm not so sure.
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Almost $1,000 for you...$1.99 for them!
 
I had wicks installed on my Arrow after flying about 20 nm from a TS and heard the squelch break due to static on my 530W. Also, as posted above, flying in dry snow (Colorado snow) or rain causes static build-up so to protect my radios the wicks seemed to be a logical choice. There are 3 on each aileron, 3 on the stabilizer and one on the rudder.
 
small correction...my Arrow has 2 on each aileron and one on each flap plus 3 on the stabilizer and one on the rudder.
 
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