How Much Ice, How Much Trouble?

[chrisk]

I've never had ice on my plane, but I have been in a passenger in one that picked up ice.    In this example, ice was picked up on the decent to landing and it didn't take more than 10 minutes to accumulate.    And for those that don't recognize it, it is a 172.  The ice showed well on the tires early.   Not shown was the prop.  It too had ice and strong vibrations require reduced throttle and no ability to climb back out of the mess.

 

Also, as mentioned somewhere above, the narrower the surface, the more ice it tends to get.   Typically the tail of a plane is much more narrow than the wing and it can pick up more ice.   As you may recall, the tail pushes down, behind the center of gravity, which pushes the nose up.   A tail stall will remove the tails downward force and the nose will drop.   And when you add flaps, the tail needs a higher angle of attack, which means a greater chance of a tail stall.    --So, adding flaps with ice on short final may create a tail stall and a sudden nose down pitch at slow speed and 50 feet above the ground.  Ice => flaps up, higher speed landing.

[John Pleisse]

Mike, You are ready to move up to a TKS bird. In a 201, I suggest any ice is an immediate action problem. Even light rime. You need 3 things. A back door, boots or TKS and excessive HP or Turbo. And regarding the pix Ross posted:

 

See attached pics as an example of what a Mooney will fly with. IIRC, according to the PIC this airplane was not loosing altitude at this level of accumulation, speed was degrading though.  Must have had some big brass ones to get these shots..."Oh look honey, there's an inch of rime on the leading edge, get my camera"). This is not me nor my plane.  I forget who posted them where and when, but I thought I'd save them for just this type of discussion.

 

I have had very few icing experiences. The worst was encountering freezing rain in a 172 while flying below the cloud deck VFR. It built up fast (maybe a 1/3" in about five minutes and also blocked all view out of the windshield. Luckily I was only about 10 miles from my destination when it happened.  My dad who is also a pilot came out to help me tie down. When he saw the clear ice melting off the wings of the C172 I was renting, he just about throttled me (I was 26 at the time so it was wore of a tongue lashing). Bad judgement but a good learning experience.

 

Ok, that's too much. That is enough to significantly degrade performance. I'd bet all the tea in China that pilot was cycling his prop every 3-4 mins. The thing about lulling along in strato and having moderate rime or mixed, is you never know when you'll stumble into rain and clear ice to rapidly pile on top of it.

[BorealOne]

This vid is instructive - pilot flies into icing conditions - quickly decides that this isn't where he wants to be, gets lower clearance from ATC, and descends. That's how it's done.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

Out here in the west decending while IFR is usually not an option. The MEAs are usually quite high. I always climb to tru to get out of ice. If that doesn't work I turn around because i know there was no ice back there. Just don't wait to long to make that decision and be mindfull of the wind.

[Awful_Charlie]

Coincidently, this just got posted on another forum - sobering thought if even a TBM700 gets overwhelmed.  Take care out there!