Flights that make you want to retire

Cessnaflyer

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Flying out of Crescent City last night with the props sending a nasty vibration through the airframe and the wings collecting ice. We clawed our way to 250 and finally topped the clouds. We landed and still had ice on the bottom of the fuselage :oops:

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Geeze... That area is crazy.

I also had a “want to retire” flight when flying from CEC-ACV almost 10 years ago. It’s like the Bermuda Triangle of the US in some ways. Not a lot of alternates, weird weather, sometimes poor communication, etc.
The ice box of the northwest! We went into CEC 45 minutes earlier to drop the passengers off and it was fine.
 
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Few years ago in a Lear 35. Severe clear icing into Montreal and our wonderful windshield “de-ice” system. Landed with, no crap, about 1/2-3/4 of an inch of ice on every surface of the aircraft other than the heated leading edges. Had to shut the engines down twice on taxi due to idle thrust sliding us uncontrollably and of course no one could tow us. Learned a lot about when to say enough is enough that day.
 
Having never flown anything with boots, I know some are approved for known icing. Also, the Q400, from riding on the jumpseat, I've noticed it has an automatic boot inflation system. Is that based on sensors? I guess my real question is about techniques on when to use the boots. I've read that if you screw it up the ice forms a bubble that the boot can't break and then yer screwed.
 
The turboprops I've flown (DH8B/C/D, KA's, PC-12, MU-2) all have an automatic cycle that inflates the boots on a timed interval but you have to physically turn it on. The FIKI pistons I've flown (402, 210) you have to manually inflate the boots every time. The NTSB debunked ice bridging a while back but the theory persists.
 
That brings back memories. So many hours flying in and out of CEC and ACV.
One time climbing out of PDX we picked up so much ice that we lost 20 knots in a couple seconds in the climb. Had to get an immediate descent down to 14k. We finally lost all the ice on the ramp in Redding.
 
...because it’s real. Keep those boots good and slick even in the summer.

@Cessnaflyer — forget that AFM climb schedule. Climb with the temp/tq needles right on the line and keep it as fast as you can.
Yeah we climb with torques then temps pegged. We also have the Blackhawk engines as well I couldn’t imagine being in a standard B200 again
 
Yeah we climb with torques then temps pegged. We also have the Blackhawk engines as well I couldn’t imagine being in a standard B200 again


I never got to fly one with either the -52 or -61 engines. Most of our legs were < 150nm and we stayed in the teens.

This reminds me of something else. I was doing some training with a guy in a EFIS B200. He was doing a coupled cruise climb at about 180 KIAS when, before I could get the words out of my mouth, he tapped the CLIMB button on the FCP. And away we went as it pitched (it does so aggressively, if you haven’t had the pleasure of such an experience) up to the scheduled 140 KIAS.

“So, again, let’s use IAS for any climbs and VS for the descents. M-kay?”
 
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