ICE!!!!!!!

flyhi5

New Member
So the winter months are quickly approaching which means no more full out IFR stuff for us pilots flying the smaller stuff.... I wanted to know what some peoples experiences with ICE have been, how much you had, what actions you took, and how it made you feel...

I've actually never really had any experiences with ice, so I'm curious to see what people do in the smaller airplanes....

....can't wait till I can just flip the switch that says "wingheat"
 
Funny timing.

Yesterday's TAF called for ICE in the clouds, and ceilings better than 5000. We are tooling along at 9.5 200ft above the clouds a sct/bkl layer and Albany asks me to let them know before I start my decent ( I was landing about 50 miles north of ALB) My reply was as soon as I find a hole in the clouds I would let him know. ATC called ahead and asked 3 different acft all say no holes. No problem, there are still some near by I turn and find a nice long one and pop out the bottom at 3000ft. .. all is well, But hey the forecast is not matching conditions. Everyone on the freq was asking for (and getting) different alts to keep out of the Ice. we landed did what we needed to do and on the trip home the ceiling had dropped to about 1500ft, and we did the slalom course around the precip. the OAT was 33, and the showers were still liquid. (watch the rain on the windshield if the water stops moving up the window. that is because it is now ice.) we picked up a little ice, all it took was dropping down 200ft or so it would warm up and off it went.

Anyway It was interesting to see we were not the only ones who believed the FSS weather
frown.gif


Other than that I have hit Ice a few times in non Ice equipped acft once almost killed me (Rocky Mountains 12,000 ft Cherokee)

If you can visit NASA's Icing branch at http://icebox-esn.grc.nasa.gov/ they have some VERY VERY cool videos taken while doing Ice Testing on different airplanes.
 
From Grand Junction to Prescott AZ, a friend and I picked up 3/4" of mixed ice on a Turbo Seminole. Bad juju, because we couldnt descend below the clouds due to MEA's, and we couldnt climb above due to tops at 240. Umm, lets see, as far as adverse flight charachteristics: The tail tried to stall on me twice, and it was requiring MUCH more than normal cruise power to maintain 14000'. No real problems with flight controls other than the Stabilator becoming mushy and very ineffective. We got lower as soon as we could, and it all came off. We made it back, and learned alot, but I would advise against messing with ice in GA aircraft in general. If it doesnt kill you, its gonna scare the heck out of you at the very least.
 
Been using anti-ice and deice up high since September. Lately it's been getting where we are using all anti/deice equipment down low, and on approach. A few times have been up to "level 5" which is everything going on high. Tis the season!
 
I've had some bad experiences with ice in a 172. It happened when I violated rule number one which is always have an out. Since then, I don't go unless I know I can get on top. If you're on top, you need to stay on top or make the commitment to a quick descent through the clouds to good conditions below. I don't mind sticking my nose in it during a training situation as long as I can descend when I need to as a way out. Of course, get any ice in a non-known icing airplane and the FAA can violate you....though they rarely find out about it....
 
I've never picked up ice (other than carb ice) in a non-certified airplane.

I did pick up severe ice on a trip in the Jetstream from IAD to PIT last January. As we descended through a thick cloud layer, the ice was accreting so quickly that the boots weren't able to clear the wings. My heated windshield was even covered with ice before we got to warm enough temperatures to stop the buildup.

Eventually our windshields cleared enough to see, but the wings were still totally covered when we landed. It looked like someone had left the airplane in a freezer for a while.

We didn't take the airplane out again that day, but I'll bet it took quite a while to deice.

So far this winter there have only been two or three days that we landed and took off with anti-ice on.
 
i just see the subject heading ICE.... and all i can think of is.... ice ice baby..... vanilla ice ice baby..

so wrong..i even started this post.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I've never picked up ice (other than carb ice) in a non-certified airplane.

I did pick up severe ice on a trip in the Jetstream from IAD to PIT last January. As we descended through a thick cloud layer, the ice was accreting so quickly that the boots weren't able to clear the wings. My heated windshield was even covered with ice before we got to warm enough temperatures to stop the buildup.

Eventually our windshields cleared enough to see, but the wings were still totally covered when we landed. It looked like someone had left the airplane in a freezer for a while.

We didn't take the airplane out again that day, but I'll bet it took quite a while to deice.

So far this winter there have only been two or three days that we landed and took off with anti-ice on.

[/ QUOTE ]


Same here Dave, on the Jetstream one night, we had so much ice, the bastard would bearly climb above 8000 ft... We couldn't de-ice those wings and we had 3'' on the wipers. Well, we had to report heavy icing.
 
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