lml@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

The Columbia "Evade" system and the "Thermawing/Therm-X" system are very different. Compare this situation to that in which you give a box of gears and springs to two individuals, an experienced watch maker and an inexperienced kayaker. The former could make a clock that keeps perfect time whilst the latter has to spend his energy trying to keep his head above water so the clock becomes a very secondary priority. It's not the parts that are critical so much as the assembly and implementation of the technology.

Columbia already had stretched their management expertise to the limit and the hot wing system was afforded little engineering time or management support. Consider that they installed the first systems without insulation between the 7 kilowatt alternator and the copper mesh in the wing. They turned that puppy on and got an airborne toaster - talk about a hot wing!

Contrast that to the current implementation of Therm-X at RDD. They know the theory and practice of the hot wing. They have wrung out the system under different installation conditions and on different wing designs. And there are already hundreds of hours on the systems. There might be differences in some components compared with the early Evade designs but the biggest factor in performance is the installation. I expect that as the dust settles at Columbia/Cessna they will complete their homework and start to ship planes with a hot wing. They might even offer to fix their early installations, if only to emphasize Cessna's commitment to the pilot community.

Robert M. Simon

ES-P (de-iced) N301ES

From: Colyn Case on earthlink [mailto:colyncase@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 1:09 PM
Subject: Columbia owners on tks vs. thermawing

Apparently Cessna is still making up their mind about thermawing and is only supporting TKS for now. . . I thought this one was interesting as it indicates some of what I hope are only teething issues for thermawing. Colyn

Re: TKS decision guidance

I had mixed results with Evade in a round trip from Portland to Southern California last week.

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Art Schwalge, Columbia 400, N4468F

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