I cannot say with certainty whether it was light or moderate ice or worse as the only ice that I picked up in 20 minutes descending through continuous  imc with tops at 17000 to ceiling of 2000 feet(all of which below freezing) was 1/4" on my landing light lenses which I only noticed after putting the plane away. However, a Mooney in the same vicinity was in serious trouble and could not maintain altitude though fortunately emerged unscathed. My TKS system just works. I have it installed on wings and HStab with a slinger ring on the prop which also bathes the windshield and fuselage including presumably the air intake. It is important to  get it working before entering the moisture. I would not want to hang out indefinitely in icing but for inadvertent and the need to get through layers it just seems to work though I am always looking at the wings with a heightened level of awareness. I have never used boots but the few folks that I have talked to who have had experience with TKS and boots on the same m/m particularly one very knowledgable p210 pilot/instructor seem to far prefer TKS. I have no experience with Thermawing but intuitively I have trouble believing that it works as well as TKS. Obviously the downsides to TKS are limited volume though I have never run out, fluid weight(heavier than fuel), potential limited availability at airports, and it's messy constantly "weeping"(hence the nickname weeping wing) and leaving "puddles" on the hangar floor. FWIW

David Weinsweig
N750DW TKS Deiced Propjet



For those that have either TKS or thermawing on their airplanes have you ever been in anything more than trace or  light icing? If so how did the system and the airplane perform?

The key with boots or any system that cycles if you're not able to regain some of the airspeed loss that occurred before the boots cycled it's time to go down.