De-icing in winter

Watch the video: Safety checks before you fly

When your airline has De-icing in winter on, the booking page checks the weather at your departure airport. If it is cold and wet enough for ice, a De-icing card appears and asks you to de-ice before you leave the gate.

When the card appears

The card appears when the departure airport's latest weather report shows 3 °C or colder together with one of these:

• freezing rain or freezing drizzle, or ice pellets
• snow, snow grains, snow pellets or small hail, or ice crystals
• rain or showers
• fog, mist or visibility of 1 statute mile or less

On a warm or dry day you see nothing.

Starting the holdover timer

1. Ask for de-icing in the simulator (with your ground services add-on, or just wait a few minutes at the gate).
2. On the booking page, choose the fluid: Type I, Type II or Type IV. Each button shows its holdover time for today's weather.
3. When the aircraft is clean, press De-iced: start the holdover timer.

The card then counts down the holdover time and shows the time you should be airborne by. If the time runs out before take-off, the card says so: press De-ice again and start a new timer.

On your PIREP

When you file, Vaeroly compares your take-off with the end of the holdover time. If you took off later, the PIREP shows a line such as Took off 12 min after the de-icing holdover time. Your airline decides on its Scoring page whether that line costs points; by default it is only a note. A flight you didn't de-ice gets no line.

Holdover times

Vaeroly uses its own simplified table, in minutes. The PIREP judges against the longer number.

| Fluid | Fog or mist | Snow | Freezing rain | Rain on a cold day | |---|---|---|---|---| | Type I | 6–15 | 5–10 | 2–5 | 2–5 | | Type II | 20–60 | 15–35 | 5–15 | 10–40 | | Type IV | 40–120 | 25–60 | 10–25 | 15–60 |

These times are for the simulator only, not for real operations.

For staff

Turn it on under Staff → Airline settings → Optional features → De-icing in winter. The points for a late take-off are under Staff → Operations → Scoring › Took off after the holdover time (0 means a note only).