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Ice go /no go advice...
I'm new to flying IFR.I have about 5 hours actual, but this morning
was going to be my first IFR flight without a safety pilot. CRQ to SBP I'm flying a C172RG The weather forecast: Cloud bases vary from 1500 to 6000 ft over the route. Rain reported all over the region.,. Freezing level (From winds aloft) between 6000 and 9000 No icing airmets or sigmets for the route. No Pireps availible. MEA 6000 ft with one 16mile segment of 6400 ft. Now three hours after I cancled I review the weather, there are two pireps availible with light rime ice at 9000 ft. Still no airmets or sigmets. This was a very close decision for me, and I opted for the No-Go. I also releaized that I don't feel I know enoguh about making this decision. How do the rest of you make the "Ice" decision. What are your rules? Any guidance on making this decision would be helpful. |
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wrote:
It was a good decision to cancel. I just got a phone call, and the airplane I was going to use had an alternator/electrical system failure, today, while someone else was flying it in the pattern. Hmmm... not so fast! Hindsight is 20-20. While certainly true that you were lucky it wasn't you in IMC during this aircraft's alternator failure, IMO you cannot use this incident to validate your go/no go decision. Rather, I believe that you made the right decision based on the facts at the time of the decision; that is, that you concluded there was a good chance of icing and you had no perceivable "out" to escape the ice. -- Peter ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
#6
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To me, at least, this is an absolute no brainer. MEA at the freezing level -
no go. Ice is very scary stuff. Especially in a 172. Michael wrote in message ... I'm new to flying IFR.I have about 5 hours actual, but this morning was going to be my first IFR flight without a safety pilot.... snip |
#7
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What are your rules?
This tends to be a very heated subject, but I hear your frustration, it is hard to get substantial, realistic advice about ice. Not really having enough experience to contribute anything meanigful yet, I will just recommend reading Buck's "Weather Flying" (a refreshingly candid discussion of ice flying strategies, I thought), and for what its worth, offer some personal perspective: PIREPs are very important to me, if kerosene burners bother to sprinkle the wings and pass it on to center as "moderate", its probably some pretty serious s**t for us. Remember these guys spend so little time at one altitude block that the accretion had to be pretty impressive to get noticed, and you are dealing with fairly uniform experience level, too. With lighter GA craft, its a little tougher call, very different ideas what "moderate" is sometimes. "Severe", on the other hand, usually means "you really don't want to go there", even when its reported by a 172. On the other hand, (and I may get chastised for this), I take reports of trace or light to mean, "we, too were told there was ice, but its not that bad". At least that's how I think when I give them myself. OK, enough beating around the bush, what are some examples of my go/no go's: GO: PDX-SEA, late November, C177B (180hp/CS prop), fly this route 4-5x year. Layered according to the radar, tops confirmed at 9,000, the usual daily SCAIRMET for occasional mixed in clouds/precipitation. Freezing level at 3K, MEA is 5000, mostly over valleys and several airports with approaches. Picked up some trace/light mixed between 5-7K feet. Had to put on sunglasses once on top, beatiful trip. NO-GO: West Yellowstone-Boise, C177(older 150hp model) (long trip away from home), September, but unusually cold morning. Obstacle DP was climbing via localizer with something like a 300' minimum climb gradient to 10K with ~1500 ceiling. Freezing level at 8-9K, no PIREPs. I have also experienced ice in this airplane before and knew it would struggle to maintain much above 8K with any significant accretion. I am sure you are getting a wind of the difference - the former had plenty of outs with little better equipment, while the latter would have been a truly optionless existence. I guess my point is you have to think about the big weather/performance/terrain picture. I don't think there are any hard and fast rules, in the end it boils down to personal risk tolerance and previous experience with similar circumstances... Martin |
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I'm certainly not one of the "if you touch ice your plane will end up
in flames" guys. However, you always want to have an out anytime there is any chance of ice. The way you described it, it doesn't sounds like there was much of an out. Now, if the weather was clear at departure you may have been able to climb above it or if the MEAs were below the freezing level things could have been different. I would have opted for the no-go myself. However, I would highly recommend going up into the 1500 if you can locally and experience some close to home IMC. Just tell the controllers you want to fly to foobar intersection and hold. I do it all the time with students. I honestly believe that the single thing that most pilots need is spending 30 minute solid crusing in the clouds. We spent way to much time on approaches where things are busy and not enough spining around where you can relax and get a feel for the plane in IMC. -Robert, CFI wrote in message . .. I'm new to flying IFR.I have about 5 hours actual, but this morning was going to be my first IFR flight without a safety pilot. CRQ to SBP I'm flying a C172RG The weather forecast: Cloud bases vary from 1500 to 6000 ft over the route. Rain reported all over the region.,. Freezing level (From winds aloft) between 6000 and 9000 No icing airmets or sigmets for the route. No Pireps availible. MEA 6000 ft with one 16mile segment of 6400 ft. Now three hours after I cancled I review the weather, there are two pireps availible with light rime ice at 9000 ft. Still no airmets or sigmets. This was a very close decision for me, and I opted for the No-Go. I also releaized that I don't feel I know enoguh about making this decision. How do the rest of you make the "Ice" decision. What are your rules? Any guidance on making this decision would be helpful. |
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#10
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In article , Peter R.
writes: It was a good decision to cancel. I just got a phone call, and the airplane I was going to use had an alternator/electrical system failure, today, while someone else was flying it in the pattern. Hmmm... not so fast! Hindsight is 20-20. While certainly true that you were lucky it wasn't you in IMC during this aircraft's alternator failure, IMO you cannot use this incident to validate your go/no go decision. Rather, I believe that you made the right decision based on the facts at the time of the decision; that is, that you concluded there was a good chance of icing and you had no perceivable "out" to escape the ice. Good thought, Peter. The wife and I call these "mid Lake decisions" and we are not allowed to make them. Comes from sailing across large lakes (we have a boat on Lake Erie). When you are on one shore and going to the other, you decide about the weather, etc. but when you are in the middle of the lake you don't second guess your decision. A good decision was made not to go because of POSIBLE ice. When your are in "the middle of the lake" you can't decide whether to go or not. Also, be sure not to "beat up" on yourself if the decision turns out to be wrong. Just learn from it. Experience is surviving your mistakes and learning. |
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