The iceman returneth

azure

Final Approach
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azure
It looks like I'm grounded this weekend by a combination of MVFR ceilings and low freezing levels. There is even an icing airmet for down as low as 4000 feet in northern New England, 7000 as far south as the NYC area. That might not be a problem for IFR in southern New England, but up here the MIA is 5400, and MEAs of 6000 are not uncommon. The initial segment altitudes for all of the approaches into my home base of KMPV are at least 5000.

The last 2-3 weeks have been mostly flyable, and we had one day that would have been great for shooting approaches locally, if I'd been current. But lately we've taken a step back into icing season. New England is under an unseasonably cold pool of air that shows no sign of moving off anytime soon.

Let's all be careful out there!!
 
I flew from the Phila area to Leesburg and back yesterday for a very bumpy ride. That's considerably south of you. I heard ATC ask a nearby JetBlue pilot if he encountered the icing as they flew thru 12000 ft. The JetBlue pilot said, yes, they got the whole smash, rain, turbulence, ice and clouds. I guess they both thought that was unusual.
 
Popped my ice cherry when I flew Sunday with an IFR rated safety pilot and he filed so we didn't have to go under a broken layer. Went into Northern Maine to shoot some approaches and it was 4°C at 6,000. Went to 8,000 and were 500 below the tops at 0°C with no ice so we decided to go up above the tops at 10,000. Picked up just the lightest touch of ice on the struts in the last 200 feet before breaking out on top. Great learning experience and definitely worth always watching the weather for icing potential no matter what the time of year.
 
Popped my ice cherry when I flew Sunday with an IFR rated safety pilot and he filed so we didn't have to go under a broken layer. Went into Northern Maine to shoot some approaches and it was 4°C at 6,000. Went to 8,000 and were 500 below the tops at 0°C with no ice so we decided to go up above the tops at 10,000. Picked up just the lightest touch of ice on the struts in the last 200 feet before breaking out on top. Great learning experience and definitely worth always watching the weather for icing potential no matter what the time of year.
I'll never forget descending through a fairly thin layer going into KASH a couple of years ago and picking up a fair amount of clear ice - so clear I didn't even see it until I was outside the plane. It was maybe a quarter of an inch thick, and all over the leading edges. I'd noticed some ice on the windshield, but it quickly melted once out of the clouds and I assumed that anything that was on the wings would do the same, even landed with normal flaps. I imagine there was even more ice on the leading edges earlier - certainly enough to affect the flight characteristics, though I didn't notice anything. :yikes:

Yes the freezing levels were higher yesterday than the last few days, and are still pretty well up there today - high enough to shoot approaches here, though the bases aren't quite low enough to justify doing that, and I'm also concerned about convection and embedded thunderstorms later on.
 
I'll never forget descending through a fairly thin layer going into KASH a couple of years ago and picking up a fair amount of clear ice - so clear I didn't even see it until I was outside the plane. It was maybe a quarter of an inch thick, and all over the leading edges. I'd noticed some ice on the windshield, but it quickly melted once out of the clouds and I assumed that anything that was on the wings would do the same, even landed with normal flaps. I imagine there was even more ice on the leading edges earlier - certainly enough to affect the flight characteristics, though I didn't notice anything. :yikes:

Wow, that's quite a story, duly noted. How thin was the cloud layer?
 
Wow, that's quite a story, duly noted. How thin was the cloud layer?
Maybe 1000 feet thick or so, got through it in a minute or so. It was entirely a case of bad judgment (mine); conditions were clear up here and then there was a sharp cloud edge just south of KLEB. There was also an airmet for icing, and even some pireps for ice farther south in MA and CT. I saw that it was thin and didn't want to have to cancel IFR to get underneath, so I just kept trucking on. Live and learn.
 
Maybe 1000 feet thick or so, got through it in a minute or so. It was entirely a case of bad judgment (mine); conditions were clear up here and then there was a sharp cloud edge just south of KLEB. There was also an airmet for icing, and even some pireps for ice farther south in MA and CT. I saw that it was thin and didn't want to have to cancel IFR to get underneath, so I just kept trucking on. Live and learn.

Indeed. I may have to re-evaluate our decision making for our climb to the tops. While I think we still did our flight 100% safely (our ice was barely more than a frost) your experience definitely shows that even a minute in the clouds can be enough for significant icing.
 
Come to think of it - it was probably thicker than 1000 feet, maybe more like 1500 or even 2000 at that point, but I was pushing my descent rate to get through it as fast as possible. The reported bases weren't changing much but the tops were rising as I got further south - that was part of why I thought I was going to be okay (as long as I didn't need to get vectored in the soup for an approach), all the pireps were from the area where the layer was much thicker, several thousand feet.

But yeah, it's definitely possible to pick up significant ice in only a minute. All depends on how much liquid water there is inside the cloud.
 
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