How do you deal with ice?

steingar · October 24, 2018

1 minute ago, Piloto said:

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Velocity Visions V1 Protection Detail and Seal is an easy spray on and wipe off sealant that is extremely hydrophobic and glossy. It is formulated to bond and protect the aircraft exterior from harsh elements, fuel and oil leakage, ice build up, UV rays and much more. It can easily be applied in a matter of minutes.

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whiskytango · October 24, 2018

If you encounter icing be prepared to respond immediately. There are several Air Safety Foundation videos involving icing encounters where the pilot was not decisive and ended up losing control and dying.

I had an encounter with clear icing that was not forecast. When I told ATC that I needed an immediate descent (there was warm air below my altitude) her response was "stand by". I decided to give her 15 seconds before declaring an emergency and making the descent, whether cleared or not. She did provide clearance for a descent before the 15 seconds was up and all ended well.

jaylw314 · October 24, 2018

5 minutes ago, whiskytango said:

If you encounter icing be prepared to respond immediately. There are several Air Safety Foundation videos involving icing encounters where the pilot was not decisive and ended up losing control and dying.

I had an encounter with clear icing that was not forecast. When I told ATC that I needed an immediate descent (there was warm air below my altitude) her response was "stand by". I decided to give her 15 seconds before declaring an emergency and making the descent, whether cleared or not. She did provide clearance for a descent before the 15 seconds was up and all ended well.

I'm STILL trying to find the seat cushion after my icing encounter :unsure:

gsxrpilot · October 24, 2018

Speaking of ice... we scooped this piece right out of the ocean. It had come off the bottom of a glacier and had all the air and impurities pressed out of it by the immense pressure. So it was absolutely crystal clear. We took it with us back to the bar on the boat where the bar tender knew exactly what to do with it.

thinwing · October 24, 2018

Well I haven't tried rainex,wd-40 or got forbid pilot/copilot PP...fiki tks and a Turbo have worked very well in the 9 years I've had the Bravo.I assume if my flight takes me outside the Central Valley of calif ,I will always be at freezing level.If I am dealing with an active weather front ,I try to time flight after frontal passage and NEXRAD is showing little or no yellow zones and up.I try to reroute arround green cells and totally avoid mixed pink cells.That leaves the stratus layer clouds that can usually be topped at 17/19 k.So my usual icing encounters are pretty short ,typically involving turning pitot heat on and priming the tks panels on high 5 min before cloud.Else where I have posted icing encounters that practically exhausted my entire 6 gallon supply of tks...but that was the result of catching up with a front of pink mixed rime,freezing rain over high terrain over Mammoth lakes calif.It took penetration of 4/5 cells at 17 k all of which were shown clearly on nexrad,to exhaust 5 of 6 gals of tks...fortunately the system worked but all the drama could have been avoided by following my rules above.My wife now knows how to interpret NEXRAD cells and most weather products so she says we won't be repeating that performance again.I have also been surprised by amount of icing on a couple summer trips thru Yukon Territory which lack nexrad coverage.Have experienced very heavy icing at middle teen alitudes between Smithers BC and Whitehorse.This was uncomfortable because I was out of Radar and radio range with center so couldn't amend my clearance.I just had to trust my tks supply would last till I either ranout of weather cells of could call center and get a new altitude.My wife says she would not care to repeat that either.So I've become more conservative...

Piloto · October 24, 2018

41 minutes ago, steingar said:

If you really believe their claims I have this wonderful bridge in Brooklyn you might want to buy.

Is it fully assembled. I am missing parts on mine.

José

Yetti · October 24, 2018

Mostly down south we deal with ice by making a margarita out of it.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Yetti

steingar · October 25, 2018

Up North we use it in Whiskey, when we aren't trying to keep out of it in the air. On Queer Eye there was a guy who made Hillbilly Margaritas. Tequila and Mountain Dew. The Fab Five didn't much like it.

Cruiser · October 25, 2018

On 10/24/2018 at 12:14 AM, SpamPilot said:

snip...... What information resources are useful and which are noise? Is the combination of your aircraft's features, your preflight planning, and your flight tactics generally good enough to keep you out of trouble?

If you are truly interested in sound advice, go back and reread the comments from those that have FIKI equipped aircraft and listen carefully. These people are best equipped to deal with the situation and they are telling you not to mess with trying to predict it.

In 9 out of 10 cases you may experience exactly what you predict. BUT what all of these "experts" are telling you is sooner or later you will get a nasty surprise. ICE is not nice.

Mooney-Mark · October 27, 2018

Ice.... No deicing equipment on my C so I stay out of it. If I start accumulating light rime on a winter trip, I'm looking for a higher or lower altitude with warmer air. Ice is not something to ignore when flying a non-deiced airplane.

jaylw314 · October 27, 2018

8 hours ago, Mooney-Mark said:

Ice.... No deicing equipment on my C so I stay out of it. If I start accumulating light rime on a winter trip, I'm looking for a higher or lower altitude with warmer air. Ice is not something to ignore when flying a non-deiced airplane.

If it's unforecast icing, though, there's a better than 50/50 chance that if you climb or descend, you'll find you went in the direction of MORE icing. Making a 180 first at least gets you to a place that is known to have less or no icing, then you can decide whether to try going up or down.

Guitarmaster · October 28, 2018

This was a particularly dark and somewhat crappy night. I had just flown the 737 in and there was no ice. Flight home at 3000... well...
There was a big inversion at 4000 from the last Skew-T I could pull, but I couldn't get it to come up just before departure. The plan was to climb into the inversion. Didn't get that far. Escape route was to the south into MVFR conditions.
I leveled at 2700 where the ice stopped accumulating. I debated on climbing 1000 feet into the inversion, but I didn't know for sure it was still there and I thought I would be in big trouble if it wasn't.
Two observations:
1. The airplane handled fine with the 1/2" or so that accumulated. Speed is your friend in this situation.

2. I wipe the prop down with WD-40 silicone spray in the winter. There was no ice at all on the prop; take that for what it's worth.

This particular night was a weird night. It was snowing lightly (I fly in snow a lot) which usually means no ice, but with the inversion, icing existed.

The best advice I have is to learn the Skew-t chart intimately.
Combine that with as many pilot reports as possible to get the overall picture.
ALWAYS have a VIABLE escape plan! When things go south, they go south quickly and your fight or flight (no pun intended) will kick in. Decision-making on-the-fly becomes very difficult.

If i never flew when there was a chance of icing, I would never fly in the winter; at least in my part of the country. Sometimes s*** happens. Look at all available information, evaluate your comfort and skill level then listen to your gut.

**carusoam** · October 28, 2018

Great pics, Matt!

which state are you in tonight?

Rainy and 45°F in NJ...

Thanks for the pirep on Skew-Ts

I am really starting to see the value. More and more often as the weather is starting to chill...

Best regards,

-a-

Andy95W · October 28, 2018

On 10/24/2018 at 11:53 AM, jaylw314 said:

Another good visual depiction of icing is the Graphical Forecast for Aviation site from the NWS as well. It pulls pretty much all weather information together and has a button specifically for icing that you can adjust by time and altitude.

Nice link, Jay. Thanks.

Andy95W · October 28, 2018

How do folks look at the Skew-T's?

Is there a website that shows them, or does it have to be an app?