It's the season for icing here in the midwest. As some instrument-rated and other pilots can tell you, few things have higher pucker factor than looking out at your wings while you're in the clouds and seeing ice begin to form. Most general aviation aircraft don't have de-icing equipment on board and even those that do often aren't certified for flight into known icing conditions.For most GA pilots, that means avoiding icing in the first place - and that requires the development and use of the most effective anti-icing tool you have. Your noggin.Few are more qualified to provide authoritative information about icing than the professionals on the Icing Team and in the Flight Operations team at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. We had the opportunity recently to talk to NASA Glenn pilots Kurt Blankenship and Bill Rieke and researcher Dr. Judy Van Zante, a contractor with ASRC Aerospace.Bill Rieke is chief of aircraft operations at the NASA Glenn. He began his flying career with the U. S. Navy in 1966 and flew with Fighter Squadron 74 aboard the USS Forrestal and later flew tactical aircraft with the U. S. Air Force (Air National Guard). He also flew as a captain for the Standard Oil Company before joining NASA. He has flown research and test missions for NASA since 1981.During his time at NASA he has been the lead project pilot for numerous projects ranging from zero-gravity flight to advanced cockpit technology for the U. S. Air Force. He has also been deeply involved in airborne icing research since 1982.Bill has an airline transport certificate, five type ratings and 12,000 hours of flight time. His military flight experience was almost exclusively in tactical jet aircraft.Kurt Blankenship is an NASA Icing Research Tunnel Operator, NASA Glenn Research Center Pilot and the Centerâ??s Aviation Safety Officer. He served in the United States Marine Corps as a CH-53 Helicopter Crew Chief from 1981 to 1985 and then worked for Continental Air Lines as a mechanic. He then attended Bowling Green State University and was a flight instructor and director of maintenance for the schoolâ??s flight department during that time. He was a corporate pilot and mechanic from 1990 to 1994 and has been with NASA Glenn since 1994. He holds commercial, flight instructor, and airline transport pilot certificates and, in addition to flying NASA Glennâ??s icing research aircraft, he is type rated in Learjets and has over 1,000 hours of flight research time.Judy Van Zante is a researcher and project lead for the pilot training aids at NASA Glenn and has also done flight test engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering. She flew on the icing research aircraft and did substantial other research as part of the NASA/FAA Tailplane Icing Program.NASA Glenn's icing research aircraft is a modified DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter. It is powered by two 550 hp Pratt & Whitney PT6A-20A turbine engines that drive three-bladed Hartzel constant speed propellers. Its relatively large size makes this aircraft a versatile test bed for in-flight icing research reaching speeds of 150 knots with a range of 500 nautical miles with a maximum fuel load. The Twin Otter has been modified to carry a full complement of sophisticated instruments that measure and record important properties of icing clouds. A stereoscopic camera system documents ice accretion characteristics of the aircraft in flight.Most test flights are conducted below 10,000 ft., but the Otter has an oxygen system onboard for flight up to 16,000 ft. Research flights are performed with two pilots and up to three research personnel on-board. The ice protection system on the Otter is a combination of pneumatic boots, electrothermal anti-icing, and electrothermal de-icing. NASA has added pneumatic de-icing boots to the vertical tail, wing struts, and main gear struts. The high level of ice protection allows safe flight into known icing conditions, as well as the ability to selectively de-ice airc