Yesterday's IFR flight with questions

What a flight I experienced yesterday! Got to do more things I never did
which made for such a wonderful learning experiences and also raised
questions in my mind (surprise, surprise!).

Really worked over my decision on to launch or not to launch today to fly
from 2G2 (Steubenville, OH) to BWG (Bowling Green, KY) to MBO (Madison MS).

Was closely watching the weather in Ohio, winds on the ground, winds aloft,
clouds and ceilings, freezing level and everything else weather could throw
a kink. Called FSS yesterday and this morning, no reports of icing, only
airmets for moderate turbulence 10K and below. No TFRs in my route. Cloud
tops were forecasted to be 6000. The further south I go, the better the
conditions. Headwinds of 40 knots for the first leg, and tail winds of 15
knots for the second leg. The upper winds forecast were just about spot
on.

2G2 is an uncontrolled airport. Weather was suppose to be IFR this
morning, and I have never left an uncontrolled airport in IFR conditions.
This of course required that I call FSS and get an ATC clearance. Every
other time I have left an uncontrolled airport, I got my clearance in the
air, but today, too much scud floating above my head. Temperature on
departure was 43 degrees, with light sleet and rain falling. Figured the
decision to leave was good, as somewhere above my head would be warmer
weather then freezing temperatures due to the sleet falling. Also, based on
radar trends, I knew I would be out of the precipitation within 10 miles.
Question 1 at the bottom of this post regarding this situation.

Got my ATC clearance from FSS and had to be off the ground in 13 minutes or
my clearance was void. Not a problem, as I was the only one in the traffic
pattern *smile*. Off I go, entering IMC at 2000 feet (900 feet AGL). I
turn on my Pitot tube heat. Rain and sleet was falling, temperature held
at 43 degrees entering the clouds. Break out on top at 5500. Final cruise
altitude was 6000 (so I thought). Air was silk smooth!

The further south I go, the clouds start to slope up hill, and I am more in
IMC the further I go. Amazingly, the further south I go, the lower the
temperature goes too. About 1 hour into my flight, center calls me and
says, Sundowner 1943L, I have a reroute for you, are you ready to copy. I
had filed direct, but I still am old fashioned by tuning each VOR in my
path to help with my situational awareness. I replied standby, and grab my
pen and erasable paper. Center says, you are now cleared direct to York
VOR then direct to BWG due to MOA activities. Look on my maps, could not
find YRK. Punched NRST on Garmin 296, and York was not listed.
Sheepishly, I key up the mike and ask center for the frequency of York VOR.
Center graciously gave me the frequency, and I dial it in and start
tracking toward the VOR.

Since I was in IMC, didn't want to mess around with the GPS, since it did
not show on the list of nearest. What concerned me even more, was my DME
was not reading a distance. I then called back into center and asked for
the distance to the York VOR. They said I had 90 miles to go! Well crap,
no wonder I couldn't locate it on the maps, I wasn't looking far enough
down the road! This made me feel a little better, as I started wondering
if I had lost situational awareness. I was then able to quickly find the
YRK VOR on the en route map, and then decided to program my 2 GPS's for the
YRK VOR for distance until my DME picked up the signal. I used my NAV1 and
NAV2 for tracking, which really was fun to do, since I have not really
tracked a VOR en route for some time .

Get to the YRK VOR, turn direct to BWG. At this point, I am skimming the
tops of the clouds more in then out. In a matter of 10 miles the
temperature went from 35 to 25 degrees around this VOR. Watching my wings,
see no ice, watching my windscreen, no beads of water or ice so I figured
all was well (so I thought). I am still skimming the tops of the clouds,
in visible moisture, but not your typical "hard" IMC.

A few minutes later, I noticed that I had to sneak in a little more power
then normal, which I thought was odd, so I decided lean a little forward to
take a peek at the temperature probe. Sure enough there is a small coating
of rime ice! I call into center and request to climb to 6,500 due to ice,
and center quickly approved giving me a block altitude from 6000 to 7000.
Center asked me to report when I climbed out of the clouds and to report
when the icing has shedded. Cool I thought, I would stay 500 feet above
the clouds and climb when needed. Turned out the clouds were reasonably
level, so I was able to maintain level flight at 6,500. When the sun hit
the wings, I could clearly see the ice on the leading edges as well as the
leading edge of the stabilator. This really alarmed me as I could not see
it while in "semi" IMC. I also was shocked how much accumulated in "semi
IMC" as it was like wisps of clouds zinging by with some hard IMC
interjected.

I never really did shed the ice, it kinda evaporated on it's own, as the
outside temperature was now down to 18 degrees. I reported to Center that
I was out of the clouds and the ice was slowly disappearing.

So now here I am on top, solid overcast and wondering just how safe will it
be to descend through the cloud deck! (Question 3) Luckily, this never had
to be answered as within 10 miles of BWG, the clouds broke up and I was
cleared for a visual approach into BWG. I was monitoring any AWOS, ASOS
and ATIS en route and found the closer to BWG I got the thinner the clouds
got.

Question 1 on Sleet. In my case, it was 43 on the ground, and on my climb
to my altitude, the temperature remained well above 32 while I was in IMC.
I climbed to 6000 which was my designated altitude. I broke out at 5,500.
How far up can sleet be created and not melt before hitting the ground?
There was a layer of clouds above me. Seems that from the ground to 6000
feet, I came across some hardy sleet pellets to survive that long in above
freezing temperatures?

Question 2 on icing. Had I not climbed up like I did, I would have never
seen the ice on the wings or stabilator. I now know to look on that
temperature probe for first signs of icing as I did today, but will it
readily show up in IMC without reflections of the sun? Especially clear
icing? Where else should I look besides the temperature probem? I have a
white plane with blue strips in the wing tips, but I never saw the ice! It
truly scared the bejeebers out of me to see the ice on the leading edges,
and luckily, I am intimately aware of my plane and it's idiosycrosies that
I knew that adding power was not a normal thing for straight and level
flight.

Question 3 on icing. knowing that flying into known icing is a big no no,
(no kidding!). So, here I am on top, evaluating the cloud thickness, and
finding that the clouds were generally 1,500 feet thick. Temperatures were
dropping, which made me even more nervous about descending. Obviously
every situation is different, but what would be a reasonable amount of time
for descending into clouds that the temperature appears to be below
freezing when the cloud deck is NOT thick. Figuring on 500 feet per minute
descent, for me, 1500 feet is rather thick for 3 minutes. I would
naturally descend quickly and as safely as possible, but is there a
reasonable gauge for getting below a potentially THIN icy cloud deck?
Clouds today were widespread all the way down to BWG. When I left,
ceilings at BWG were 4200 which would have been a 1800 thick layer of
clouds. As forecasted, the clouds broke up, but what if the forecast had
busted? It's not like I could dip my wings to see if I get ice or not.

Thanks for answering my questions!

Allen