fly and rain

Negreteplaya

Negreteplaya

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Mar 19, 2013
Messages
11
Location
playa del carmen mexico
Display Name
Aeolus
Home Airfield
MMUN , MEXICO
hola where i live is raining a lot , has any of you fly in the rain , some friends tell me dont fly but others tellme fly carefully. wht woul you think??
 
The hand book for my little bird says, no take off in rain but no problem with flying and landing in rain.
 
Probably not great in a fabric covered plane (I'm guessing, don't know) but everything else, no problemo.
 
If you have a wooden or composite prop without a metal leading edge it can do some damage. I once flew 1.5 hrs in the rain with my composite prop and it shredded about 1/4 inch into it. Come to find out the manufacturer recommend no more than 2200 rpm in rain.
 
Depends on the rain. How much visibility is there? How high are the clouds? Are there thunderstorms?

No thunderstorms, enough ceiling and visibility, no problem.

Scattered rain you can fly around. But, I find that flying through the edge of a rain shower is a good way to get the bugs off my fabric covered airplane even if the windscreen leaks a little around the top and water drips in my lap.
 
Velocity173 said:
If you have a wooden or composite prop without a metal leading edge it can do some damage. I once flew 1.5 hrs in the rain with my composite prop and it shredded about 1/4 inch into it. Come to find out the manufacturer recommend no more than 2200 rpm in rain.
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I have a composite mt prop and it shed the leading edge in flight in the rain.It has the metal edge and that's what departed in IMC .I am starting to agree with the statement stay out of the rain with composite props.
 
In southwest Florida it is almost impossible to fly any amount of time without occasionally encountering rain. My first time was on my long cross country solo, and it continues to my last time yesterday. If I am flying IFR, I try to avoid moderate or greater, and anything that has lightning of course. ATC here is really, really good about allowing deviations, and in fact usually offers it before I am even thinking about asking for it. If VFR, if I cannot see through it then I avoid it. If I can see through it(appears on Nexrad as mild) then I will fly through it. Otherwise I will deviate. I have taken off in rain, and landed in rain, and have not had any problems. When landing in rain remember your roll out may be longer, and being as conservative as possible is imperative. I am not big on using brakes to begin with, and use them for stopping as little as possible. On wet runways I use them even less, and then again very, very lightly.

Bottom line, be careful, and if you are not sure then do not fly, or go with an instructor.
 
The first time I flew in rain was also on my student long X/C solo. The worst (by far) was departing Gaston's earlier this year. If I can go around the rain without a lot of extra distance, I will. If I can see through it, I will fly through it -- but if I can't see through the rain and can't go around it, I figure I probably shouldn't be flying.
 
My second lesson was an overcast day with light rain. It is still one of most my most enjoyable flights. It was also in a J3, so I don't think if you fly a fabric plane for too long the rain would hurt it.
 
Velocity173 said:
If you have a wooden or composite prop without a metal leading edge it can do some damage. I once flew 1.5 hrs in the rain with my composite prop and it shredded about 1/4 inch into it. Come to find out the manufacturer recommend no more than 2200 rpm in rain.
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Must be a catto prop. I have one hanging on the wall of my garage due to rain erosion of leading edge. I really liked that prop and it did fine where I could keep propguard tape on the leading edge but I could not keep the tape on the tip nor anywhere else for long when run in the rain. Catto now makes a carbon fibre prop with optional metal (nickel I think?) leading edge. I have read reports of a couple with adhesion problems but if / when he gets that sorted out it should be a good option for the experimentals.

I fly on a schedule for transportation and pretty much fly in all conditions with ice as about the only weather which prevents my flying. As such, I fly in rain frequently and leading edge prop issues are my biggest gripe. Be careful with flying in rain when the temp drops to near freezing conditions. Also, I hear some canards may experience pitch issues in rain.
 
I flew yesterday in the rain.... Great way to wash the plane and get all the bugs off....... I have a composite IVO prop and the rain does disfigure the leading edge protection tape a bit... Not a biggie though as it is 18 bucks to replace it...

Ps.... Rain water is soft too, so NO water spots..:no:.
 
No thunderstorms and not in the freezing range, no problem. Of course, be sure to maintain VFR if you are not instrument capable. Rain isn't anywhere near as bizarre as snow which can cut the visibility pretty badly even in a light flurry.
 
FORANE said:
Must be a catto prop. I have one hanging on the wall of my garage due to rain erosion of leading edge. I really liked that prop and it did fine where I could keep propguard tape on the leading edge but I could not keep the tape on the tip nor anywhere else for long when run in the rain. Catto now makes a carbon fibre prop with optional metal (nickel I think?) leading edge. I have read reports of a couple with adhesion problems but if / when he gets that sorted out it should be a good option for the experimentals.

I fly on a schedule for transportation and pretty much fly in all conditions with ice as about the only weather which prevents my flying. As such, I fly in rain frequently and leading edge prop issues are my biggest gripe. Be careful with flying in rain when the temp drops to near freezing conditions. Also, I hear some canards may experience pitch issues in rain.
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Yep, Catto. Great prop though. I wanted to get the nickel leading edge added to mine but he said it wouldn't work. Since it's not necessary for me to fly in all types of weather, I'll just stick with the old one. I thought of putting prop tape on to protect for the little nicks though.

I get pitch issues just flying into moisture in a cloud. It's very minor though. If it's steady rain it's fine. Just going from dry air into moisture you'll get a slight oscillation.
 
Rain, by itself doesn't pose much of a problem to VFR flight, except that when light rain reduces visibility it becomes more difficult to visually avoid areas where heavier rain and/or high moisture reduces visibility below acceptable limits for VFR. Heavier rain also tends to erode paint on props and leading edges but IME when the visibility in rain is 3 miles or greater, the rain is light enough to eliminate most if not all of the erosion issues.
 
N801BH said:
I flew yesterday in the rain.... Great way to wash the plane and get all the bugs off....... I have a composite IVO prop and the rain does disfigure the leading edge protection tape a bit... Not a biggie though as it is 18 bucks to replace it...

Ps.... Rain water is soft too, so NO water spots..:no:.
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The urethane leading edge on certain Sensenich props seems to hold up rather well too
 
In the NorthWest, if you didn't fly in rain, you wouldn't fly 70% of the time. But the poster who said, "ceiling, visibility, thunderstorms" is right on.
 
Right after flying through the rain in a (GASP!) fabric covered airplane. Can you believe how shiny that nose is? It would take me half a day to do that by hand.

DSCN0449.JPG
 
Velocity173 said:
Yep, Catto. Great prop though. I wanted to get the nickel leading edge added to mine but he said it wouldn't work. Since it's not necessary for me to fly in all types of weather, I'll just stick with the old one. I thought of putting prop tape on to protect for the little nicks though.

I get pitch issues just flying into moisture in a cloud. It's very minor though. If it's steady rain it's fine. Just going from dry air into moisture you'll get a slight oscillation.
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I have heard others say craig made statements discouraging of the nickel leading edge; I wonder why. Perhaps due to issues of keeping it attached to the blades? It was not available when I replaced my catto prop with the MT electric I have now.
I used propguard tape for a while but it is a little pricey and my experience was if I spent an hour flying in rain it needed to be replaced. So, I looked on aircraft spruce and found a large roll of some type of 3m leading edge tape and tried it. It worked as well as propguard tape and was way less expensive.
 
Negreteplaya said:
hola where i live is raining a lot , has any of you fly in the rain , some friends tell me dont fly but others tellme fly carefully. wht woul you think??
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Come to San Miguel de Allende. It rarely rains here. :yes:
 
Negreteplaya said:
hola where i live is raining a lot , has any of you fly in the rain , some friends tell me dont fly but others tellme fly carefully. wht woul you think??
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Airplane doesnt know it's raining.

Fabric planes are OK

Only issue, it isnt the best for your prop, I mainly fly metal props, have had some friends use "prop guard" film on the leading edges.

Rain isn't that big of a deal.
 
I was in some horrendous precip once before deciding it wise to invest in XM. While water came in the plane from places I never saw it before and it was so loud I could not hear the radio, the plane did fine. Have I not heard though of cases where turbines have injested so much water they have flamed out?
 
FORANE said:
I was in some horrendous precip once before deciding it wise to invest in XM. While water came in the plane from places I never saw it before and it was so loud I could not hear the radio, the plane did fine. Have I not heard though of cases where turbines have injested so much water they have flamed out?
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Certification standards for turbines include water ingestion tests
GEnxTesting.jpg


Fun fact is the thrust actually goes up
 
When my leading edge separated from the prop I was using prop tape,
 
NineThreeKilo said:
por que?
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Tends to blast the paint off the leading edges as well as the prop. Rain at 120+mph is pretty harsh and paint barely sticks to aluminum anyway. Hurricanes often leave aluminum boats stripped to bare metal on the side that got blasted.
 
Henning said:
Tends to blast the paint off the leading edges as well as the prop. Rain at 120+mph is pretty harsh and paint barely sticks to aluminum anyway. Hurricanes often leave aluminum boats stripped to bare metal on the side that got blasted.
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Huuuuuuh?


I learned to fly in Seattle, we know a few things about rain, if I never flew in the rain I would have never even got my PPL.

I've seen the rain "sand" the leading edge of the prop, but "blast the paint off"... unless your flying a F104 or logging 500hrs a month in nothing but rain at 200kts....buddy, you need to have a talk with whoever painted your plane :goofy:
 
Lol, you PNW boys know what drizzle and mist is. Come to Florida and I'll introduce you to rain.;)
 
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