So there I was...
Doing a wx recce in the working area, kinda nasty, I was leading a 4 ship all solo students. I went out first, and if good enough just call them out and do our thing.
I bust out to the MOA, I’m the only plane from the base even airborn. Advanced students have instrument cards, so this was possible, the t-2s were hard down. We flew a-4s.
Figured it would be easiest, and let’s not get into exactly WHY I decided this was a good idea, don’t worry, I got lots of excuses, to just do a loop to check out the area vertically, which went from about 10 to 20k, about the size of a loop...
Students do loops under the bag, shouldn’t really be a problem. And it wasn’t, but there was this...
Start at 15 k, mil power, roll upside down (all in the goo!) pull to 30 deg nose down, roll out, accelerate to 450, set 3.5 g’s, bottom out about 10 and up we go, you transition to AOA about the time the slats come out, so I adjust my mirrors to watch them, I’m busting through about 120 deg nose up (past vertical) watching the wings, and poof! Whole airplane ices over INSTANTLY. Gone, can’t see a stitch of color, rivet line, nothing, just ice!
Whoa! Uh... hmmm... well... ice usually only lasts 3 or 4 thousand feet, should be out of it soon, as I’m climbing around 10k fpm, a zoom climb admittedly. So just hold what I got... Like I had any other options!!
Poof! Ice all goes away as fast as it showed up. Good me thinks. Float over the top upside down, top out near 20 k, nose coming down, airspeed picking up, hmmm... this is about where the ice went away, POOF! Whole thing ices up again... saw that coming.
About where it showed up the first time, POOF! All gone again. Yay!
Level out, call in weather probably not suitable for ANYTHING!! Go back to the base. Mentioned a little icing here and there... kinda leave out the loop in the goo part...
Got me thinking, if I were at normal rates of climb and such, I’d have likely just fallen out of the sky it accumulated so fast. Who knows?
Kinda wonder if that’s what happened to this guy? I’ve had lots of pitot tubes freeze over, disconcerting but not that big of a deal. No matter, ice is BAD. Causes bad things.
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