I'm late to the party....TKS?

[wombat]

Good point! I hadn't noticed that, I just figured that since it was part 91, it applied to all of us.

[William Munney]

In my mind, there is no question that FIKI > Non -FIKI.  If you are using your airplane to travel any distances or climbing to altitude for weather and/ or winds you will be eventually be in visible moisture at temps below freezing.  Ice is hard for forecasters to predict accurately.  PIREP’s are better but no guarantee.  One minute…..no ice in the clouds.  The next minute it’s there.

I have seen shocking amounts of ice accumulate in short amounts of time in various airplanes with much more performance than the GA varieties we are talking about here and it’s never pleasant.  The ability to protect yourself while you find an out is, in my mind, priceless.  I have personally been in a GA airplane or two while accumulating ice (despite my best planning) and i do not ever want to do it again.

If you have the means or opportunity to get a FIKI airplane.  Do it.  I have used the Mooney system years ago and it works and is low maintenance too.  I would give up much more speed than the TKS unit on the Mooney costs for this benefit.  It greatly increases the ability of these traveling machines.