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Aircraft Icing Short Course Planned in Fall at Space Institute’s Flight Research Center

A short course covering “all pertinent aspects of aircraft icing” is being offered again this fall by The University of Tennessee Space Institute.

Scheduled for Oct. 16-20 at UTSI’s Flight Research Center located at the Tullahoma Airport, the course will include in-flight and ground simulations using NASA icing data.

Richard J. Ranaudo, assistant professor of the Aviation Systems Department at the Institute, which is headed by Stephen Corda, introduced the popular course in 2004.

“A combination of guest lecturers and UTSI staff, who are experts in various fields of icing technology, flight testing, and flight operations, will provide attendees with a comprehensive curriculum covering substantial subject matter,” Ranaudo said.

UTSI instructors joining Ranaudo will be U. Peter Solies, associate professor of Aviation Systems and Aerospace Engineering, and Rodney Allison, an engineering test pilot and instructor pilot.

Enrollment is limited to 17 persons, and the variable stability training flight is limited to ten of these attendees. Fee for the course is $1,765 with an additional $440 for the training flight.

Becky Stines, director of the Institute’s Continuing Education program, suggested early registration based on previous responses to the course. She may be contacted at MS 15, The University of Tennessee Space Institute, 411 B.H. Goethert Parkway, 37388-9700, (931) 393-7276, or by email at bstines@utsi.edu. Faxes may be sent to (931) 393-7327.

The Institute’s variable stability aircraft is used in simulating actual icing related to longitudinal handling anomalies as reported in NASA’s in-flight icing research program. A one-hour ground-based simulator training session in NASA’s Ice Contamination Effects Flight Training Device is included.

“Corda and Catherine Cavagnaro from the University of the South, also will be actively involved in this course,” Ranaudo said.

Guest instructors will include the following:

Ben Bernstein, a research meteorologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Tom Ratvasky, an employee of NASA Glenn Research Center, and Kurt Blankenship, research pilot at NASA Glenn, Cleveland, Ohio;

Andy Broeren, a research scientist in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Illinois, Paul Pellicano, icing specialist at the Federal Aeronautics Administration’s Small Airplane Directorate, Tom Tibbals, a senior research engineer for the Aerospace Testing Alliance, Inc. at Arnold Engineering Development Center, and Ralph Woratschek, a lead aerospace engineer for the U.S. Army’s Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center at Redstone Arsenal, Ala.