What is "too cautious"?
You were correct;
Blue skies.

H.

H. Adam Stevens
CPA S&MEL IA
solo 1967


"smackey" wrote in message
m...
I'm looking for some advice whether I was too onservative he

I recenly flew a VFR flight from Billings, MT to Bozeman, MT. About
40 miles east of Bozeman I decided that I needed to delare IFR and
filed for an Ifr clearance into BZN in order to descend through a 2500
ft cloud layer. I got the clearance into BZN, and landed without
incident.

Later that evening I went to the plane (C172/180) to return to BIL
and found a very thin layer of ice (about 5 or 6 pages of paper thick)
on all the leading edges of my plane. It was dark, about 10pm, and I
elected to stay the night. The night was patchy clouds, but mostly
clear. I had to clear a 9000 foot ridge from a 4500 foot airport,
which the plane was easily capable of doing in normal circumstances.

The ice, and slight frost, on the airplane caused me stay. As I have
never really tried to fly with a slight layer of frost or ice, I
stayed; but I wonder if I was too cautious. It would have been very
convenient for me and my passengers to go. Here's my question: just
how much ice/frost is too much? Would the ice/frost probably have
sublimated on climb out?