Aircraft icing detection is crucial for ensuring flight safety. Ice thickness measurement can provide a quantitative assessment of ice accretion on different key parts of the aircraft. This paper utilizes the principle that ultrasonic waves generate pulse echoes when propagating across media. By collecting the reflected signals of ultrasonic pulse echoes, the time of ultrasonic wave transmission in the ice layer is determined to sense the thickness of the ice layer covering the measured surface. Based on the measurement principle of ultrasonic waves and the actual material of the aircraft skin, an ultrasonic generation system device and a semiconductor refrigeration icing platform were built. Through experimental measurements on simulated ice layers with thicknesses ranging from 1 to 17 mm on the aircraft skin, it was found that the ultrasonic wave measurement results for thicker ice layers (≥ 2 mm) were accurate, with the measured values matching the actual simulated ice layer thicknesses, and the precision could reach±0.5 mm. However, for thinner ice layers, the measurement accuracy was poor, and in some cases, detection was even impossible. The research in this paper provides experimental evidence for the engineering application of in-situ ice thickness measurement based on ultrasonic pulse waves on aircraft and lays the foundation for the further development of excellent ultrasonic icing detection sensors.