Our first deicing...

You're never to old to experience something you haven't seen before. Our connecting flight from Dallas - Fort Wirth to Miami required de-icing before it could take off. Now, we've heard of aircraft de-icing before, but we had no concept of what it entailed. Now, we've seen it in action - what a drama this must have been before modern equipment was developed to facilitate it! Huge, fully enclosed for winter, cherry-picker type trucks circle the aeroplane pressure hosing what must be an anti-freeze solution all over the wings and flaps. This process takes about 20 minutes per plane, and makes for spectacular viewing, at least until the windows get splettered with the orange or green sudsy liquid. (Different formulations are used depending on whether it's still snowing.)

Why was this needed? It never gets this cold in Texas, does it? Well apparently it does, when the USA is experiencing another huge polar vortex just like the one which followed us down the Mississippi River some years ago (see earlier Blog posts). And it must happen often enough that this airport is well equipped to handle it.

On the deicing pod, the green die indicates the formulation applied during a snowfall, and shows the operator where he has treated.

We landed at DFW in poor visibility with a heavy snow falling and in just sub-zero temperatures. These conditions can freeze up the flaps and the accumulated snow and ice adds unnecessary weight. Deicing is done on a pod remote to the terminal where the dangerously slippery liquid overflow can be better contained and doesn't pose a risk for workers around the gates. Routine, maybe, for experienced American travellers, but a total novelty for us.

Not snowing any more, so our plane was treated with orange anti-freeze liquid.

Our deicing was obviously successful, because we made it to Miami only about 2 hours late. En route, live TV news on the American Airways 'plane told us of a gun outrage at Fort Lauderdale Airport only several hours beforehand. Fort Lauderdale is Miami's #2 airport, so we were lucky to be flying to the city's #1 airport.