Moderate to severe icing... any good stories you care to share?

azblackbird

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azblackbird
For you instrument rated (or VFR for that matter) GA pilots, do you have any harrowing icing experiences you would care to share?

What were the conditions, how did you handle it, and what (if any) were the resulting consequences?
 
I haven't picked up ice in an airplane that wasn't equipped to handle it... so, no. No good stories.
 
There are some videos on this topic, unfortunately none are here to tell the story

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
Severe icing in a GA aircraft (assuming most are non ice airplanes)...

How many good outcomes would you expect??
 
I've never shared this story but its time to come clean.

There I was. All alone. It was my first time solo in the Cirrus. Why I chose to fly from Florida to Colorado on my first solo, I really don't know in hindsight. Why as a VFR pilot, I opted to fly into IMC, I just cannot say. Why didn't I turn around? I dunno maybe cause you have to make a standard rate turn and I didn't know what that was so I just maintained standard rate level flight.

I felt bad because I had left my CSIP and father on the ground back at the field in Ocala but not bad enough to go back for them.
Blinded by surrounding clouds, I started to hear it. "tick" "tick" "tick" the ticks seemed to get faster. I know what you are thinking.
"This is when you started flying into the ice right?"

No, it was just a clock. They make this ticking sound. Really this is something I feel you of all people should know.
Better to keep your mouth shut and people think you are a fool than to open it and they realize you don't know about clocks.

It was getting darker, hours had passed and I felt dizzy. There were 2 Gatorade bottles on the floor.
Only one was full of Gatorade and the other urine. Not my urine. I don't pee in Gatorade bottles.

My color vision was fading but I was thirsty.
It was a 50/50 shot and I went for it.
OH GOD!!!! I made the wrong choice. My mouth was full of the most foul tasting swill ever.
Lemon Gatorade. Ugh I hate that stuff. It was terrible.

At least the bottle of urine was still untouched and available in the event of a jelly fish sting.

It was at that moment that I realized I had a problem. I could suddenly hear my mom's voice in my had "You need a weeping wing"
She always used to shout that me when I was 6 and I have no idea why. I mean she was way into aviation and a clairvoyant but it was 1981 for God's sake and I was a child. Most kids moms were yelling "Don't forget your coat" My crazy-ass mom was always shouting future plane technology phrases at me.

It was in this moment that I finally understood why. It was a warning. As I thought about this moment of my life as a child, I slowly glanced outside the window and saw the most horrific sight.

The wings had ice all over them. Quick what do you do. Climb for Ice and starve a fever. Wait! No ice on swelling but feed a cold. I CAN"T DO THIS!!!! I shouted but again I was all alone. Just me, half a jug of Gatorade, and a full jug of my grandmother's urine. Its all we have left to remember her by after the "Triangle shirtwaiste Catheter disaster of 1911"

Anyway, there was ice everywhere. They said never fly into ice and so I turned the autopilot on.
I closed my eyes, held my grandma, and went to sleep.

That was the last thing I remember.
Nobody has heard from me since. My CSIP and Dad are probably still standing there at the FBO waiting for me to finish my first solo circuit.

Now I'm just going to tag some people because this is a great and true story that is buried in a thread.
People like @eman1200 , @Checkout_my_Six , @Sac Arrow , @AggieMike88 , Ragin @Cajun_Flyer , @Ravioli , @Timbeck2 , @Fearless Tower @themonkey, @G-Man , @Matthew @MyGrandma, @Captain @Cpt_Kirk @Captain Kangaroo, @Captain Crunch, @Captain Morgan, @Morgan Freeman.

Yeah those guys.

True story.
 
Severe icing in a GA aircraft (assuming most are non ice airplanes)...

How many good outcomes would you expect??
Even the all the guys I know who fly pistons with FIKI don't have any severe icing stories.

I honestly think the only story I've ever heard of surviving severe ice in a piston airplane was Ernie Gann's chapter about picking up ice in a DC-2.
 
I encountered icing just reading this thread



42af6b6ecae4e981758cfb572cb95f52.jpg
 
What were the conditions, how did you handle it, and what (if any) were the resulting consequences?

I keep an ice chest in the plane but after a long trip of 4+ hours in the South, most of it melts. My Mountain Dew ended up warm, but after frantically calling several airports on Unicom, I was able to find an ice machine at an FBO where we immediately diverted. As a consequence of my actions, my drink was safely made cold again. I probably should have declared an emergency.
 
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I just woke up with a Korean. Damn you 6PC.
 
You guys are killing me... and here I was worried my bait wasn't going to be stinky enough. :p
 
Happened yesterday morning. Riding the old XR650 to work and my sun glasses started to glaze over, thought I was going to die until my training kicked in and ran my checklists. Lowered my glasses a bit so I could see over them and Shazam! Vision and performance resumed normal operations. Ludicrous speed the rest of the way!
 
When I worked in Alaska light icing was just normal, even for single engine planes with no ice protection. I would worry when it became moderate icing.

I hit severe icing in a Navajo one time. It was during a ILS approach so I was heading downhill already. When I landed it was a solid hit, and there was no travel left in the gear struts. There was 8 inches of ice on the nose, and about 3 inches on the spinners. All that occurred in about 3 minutes.
 
My curiosity about ice was satisfied one December, enroute from Portland to Medford in IMC, about -2C. Descent was not an option. I could see a buildup of about an inch on the leading edge of an antenna, which started whipping back and forth like a happy greyhound’s tail, so wildly I thought it would break off …

… so I pulled over at the next rest area and scraped the ice off the radio antenna, as well as the rest of the front of the car.

(The “IMC” was freezing ground fog, and this was in a Ford Explorer on Interstate 5.)

Then there was this urgent PIREP a few years ago, from a Horizon Airlines Dash 8 on the airway from Yakima to Seattle:

FL120/TP DH8B/TA M20/IC SEV MX/RM A/C IN CLOUD 4 SECONDS-1/4 INCH ACCUMULATION
 
This went south quickly. I barely remember it but my bros said I got iced hard

iceice.jpg
 
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