|
> Thanks for the story. What was the
lesson learned?
>
Hmmm, I'm still trying to figure that
one out. I had been hard IFR all day from Virginia. The area forcast mentioned
chance of light rime but I hadn't seen any all day. There were no pilot reports
of icing. When I did see the light rime it wasn't a big deal. During the
descent, however, I believe that I flew through freezing rain. This would be
consistant with the shape of the ice on the leading edge (two horns above and
below the LE with a concave forward face between them, ie; a splash pattern) as
well as the extremely rapid buildup of ice. Freezing rain was not in the forcast
and was not occurring on the ground. I also felt that I had an "out"
(incorrect) with the surface temps reporting above freezing everywhere (+3
at Plainview). By the time the ice began forming rapidly, I was already on
the approach. Damn few other ideas came to mind other than to try to keep the
airplane under control and to try to be at the runway when I got to the surface.
There was no hope of holding altitude or "stretching" the descent.
Ice is still extremely difficult to
predict. I've spent countless hours in conditions seemingly perfect for ice and
seen none. Other times in what appears to be identical conditions, ice forms.
Rarely, such as what happened to me Saturday afternoon, ice forms so fast that
if you're not very close to an airport and start an approach immediately, you're
not gonna make it. In 24,000 hours I've seen a bit of ice, but this was the
worst and most rapidly forming I've ever encountered.
Matt, one problem that I didn't have
was any icing on the static ports. I think that my "test" showed that they will
remain ice free in the worst of conditions. (mine are behind the canopy,as per
the manual) The pitot heat worked
and so all instruments remained reliable.
I take a lot of crap for trying to get de-ice on
my LIV-P.
People say "just stay out of
it". Good advice I think but I'm
not sure real life always
works out that way. Was this such a case
or could you have
avoided it?
Colyn
Yes, of course. Stay on the ground. Just don't fly IFR with temps
anywhere near freezing. But like you say, real life doesn't always work out that
way.
Bill Harrelson
N5ZQ 320 950+ hrs
N6ZQ IV 1%
|