My first freezing rain encounter

It is not just the flap deployment altering airflow over the stabilizer
that causes a tail plane stall - though that is a major problem for
many airplanes - but it is also the slowing up with flap deployment
which forces the horizontal stabilizer to fly at a higher angle of
attack (downward attack, of course)... So T-tails need to be flown
exactly the same way as straight tails... If the ship has a load of ice
(weight) forcing the airfoils to fly at a higher angle of attack to
begin with and the stab has ice distorting it's airfoil, then
increasing the angle of attack even further by slowing up will/can be
the final straw leading to an accelerated tail plane stall followed
instantly by the nose pitching downward sharply..... If you are iced
up, forget the flaps and keep the speed up until the wheels are just
above the runway... It is far better to deal with a possible low speed
over run off the end of the runway, than a pitch over at a few hundred
feet of altitude where death is certain...

Thunder bumpers, fog, and icing, are ABSOLUTE no-go situations for
me...

Remember this old saw, because it is absolutely true:
There are old pilots...
There are bold pilots...
But there are no old-bold pilots...

Denny

Denny,

Is is our modus operandi too. As I mentioned in my reply to Bob
Gardner, we attended the Wing Safety Seminar on Winter Operation last
November. Our thought was that we would never let it happen to us !
Little did we know that we would encounter icing in a short local
excursion on a day which we thought was perfect for flying. BTW, the
urgent weather warning which I received was through my-cast, a
'regular' and not aviation weather servcie. The TAF for Albany area
mentioned drizzle rain but much later in the day. POU TAFdid not
indicate any precipitation, 1B1 is between the two airports. The very
short duration of the freezing rain indicated that it could be very
local, just under a rain cloud. We might not have encountered it if
we were few miles East or West.