I am a huge fan of flight simulation games (and aircraft mechanics in general), and this is a question that has always been interesting to me. Why are some crafts able to fly in super cold areas without freezing over and inevitably plummeting, while others have basically no chance of staying airborne?
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This is quite neat. I just learned about this today from my dispatch school and here I am seeing this. What a day!
They are designed for it. At 40,000 feet the outside air temp can be -40to -50f in temperate climates. It doesn’t freeze because there’s not much moisture up there. Flying in the Arctic is not much different. Flying through clouds is a different issue.
I seem to remember Russian fighter jets use pneumatic control systems instead of hydraulic. The air doesn’t freeze
An LC-130 Hercules. Have a look at flightradar24.com. This time of year the USAF have a fairly regular flight from Christchurch , New Zealand to McMurdo Station in the Antarctic.
20 year Air Force Fuel guy here!! Water can condense and show up in fuel lines and freeze. We use an additive in jet fuel called FSII (pronounced Fizzi) it stands for Fuel System Icing Inhibitor. Basically we add it to the jet fuel to ensure that the very little bit of water that does end up in the fuel system stays water and not ice, this makes sure ice doesn’t form and clog up fuel lines.
The big high-altitude commercial aircraft are designed to operate at -55 degC. It’s a basic industry standard. At 50k ft altitude, flying over the poles doesn’t really mean anything because it is just as cold at the poles as it is somewhere else (roughly).
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