tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
Today was a great day to hang out at the airport. Last night was the state soaring seminar and banquet. Pete came down to Cedar Rapids to visit with us, then drove over to Ames. He spent a good part of the day inspecting a Ka-6CR glider that will soon be his 
A couple great soaring friends, Kent, and the Matts from Ames were all around too. All in all a great day anyway, great friends. I did a couple flight with students through the day, but the weather was starting to deteriorate. Matt Sawhill flew his 140 in the morning and then hung out all day waiting for the weather to get bad. His never ending itch for some actual IMC time had caught up with him. Temps were looking good so I got a briefing and Matt, Kent, and I loaded up in the 182RG and headed out for a planned flight to Fort Dodge.
Fort Dodge is about 45 miles out. Perfect distance for Matt to get a little time to get used to the 182RG and used to flying in cloud. With an ILS there, the plan was to shoot the approach, then Matt and Kent would switch, and Kent would get some actual and an ILS back to Ames on the way home.
Weather briefing sounded good. No mention of tops, and on a previous flight Des Moines had said tops were reported at 8000. One PIREP of turbulence along the route. Weather was in the 5-800 Overcast area. Des Moines was a good alternate. Surface temps were in the +6 degC range. I knew from earlier briefings there was an inversion aloft. Here is the sounding for Ames around departure time:
So anyway you can see that its basically perfect IFR weather, particularly for Iowa in early March. This flight was great for Matt on many levels. First he was incredibly bored during the taxi to the runway since there was so little to do. Since all of his logged time, up until today, is in taildraggers, the not so challenge of taxiing the 182RG was pretty boring. Then of course there was the whole operating a high performance / complex aircraft that was a little step up from the 140. Add to that that the ceiling was at 700 AGL and we would soon be in solid IMC for over an hour was quite overwhelming.
As we headed for Fort Dodge we heard a Saab 340 make the ILS into runway 6. I thought about trying to get a PIREP from them on ice but didnt manage to fit it in. Outside air temps at 4000 were in the mid to low 40's. Center dropped us to 3400 MSL and cleared us for the approach when we were about 25 miles out. We flew through a few areas of pretty good rain and some decent turbulence. Barreling along fat dumb and happy the three of us were really enjoying ourselves. Discussions about operating in a non radar environment, basic attitude instrument flying and single pilot IFR techniques ensued. Matt really caught on fast to keeping the airplane straight and following the VOR.
As we were approaching the outer marker I was heads down to double check that frequencies and courses were set up correctly for the ILS and to know what our next moves were. Upon looking back up I saw several areas of ice on the windshield. Leading edges of the struts were starting to build a little rime as well. Here is the sounding for Fort Dodge for about the time we were there:
According to the sounding we would've been in warm air at 3400, but it seems the sounding was slid to the left a little in reality. Actually, from the sounding, it seems the actual freezing layer would be very thin, which is why I think the Forecast Icing Potential was so low in the Fort Dodge area, only about 15% at 3000 feet:
But no matter what the soundings and forecast said, we were in ice. This was the only real point where I asked Matt for a decision. Up until then he was doing a fine job of following the VOR and other directions I had given him. I was helping with all radio related work. So when I asked him "What do you think we should do?" he was sort of task saturated at the time anyway. His immediate answer was "Turn around" Sounds good I thought, so over my shoulder. "Kent, got any opinions on the situation you would like to share?" "Turn around and climb" It sounded to me like I was flying with a couple of smart pilots so around we went and up we went. I called center and told them we were breaking off the approach and headed back to Ames. Reported the light rime ice and we were on our way. Within the next 5 or 10 miles the ice was gone and we were cruising. The rest of the trip was pretty boring really. Kent and I talked Matt through a passable ILS into Ames and he made a nice crosswind landing in an airplane that requires about double the rudder force as his 140. Logbook entry was something like:
Intro High Performance/Complex/Tricycle/IFR/Ice flight. Lots of firsts!!
Anyway we had a great flight and all 3 of us were walking about 10 feet above the ground after landing. Great debrief and discussion over beer at supper. Now Matt is off to listen to CFICast #14 "CFI's on Ice".
A couple great soaring friends, Kent, and the Matts from Ames were all around too. All in all a great day anyway, great friends. I did a couple flight with students through the day, but the weather was starting to deteriorate. Matt Sawhill flew his 140 in the morning and then hung out all day waiting for the weather to get bad. His never ending itch for some actual IMC time had caught up with him. Temps were looking good so I got a briefing and Matt, Kent, and I loaded up in the 182RG and headed out for a planned flight to Fort Dodge. Fort Dodge is about 45 miles out. Perfect distance for Matt to get a little time to get used to the 182RG and used to flying in cloud. With an ILS there, the plan was to shoot the approach, then Matt and Kent would switch, and Kent would get some actual and an ILS back to Ames on the way home.
Weather briefing sounded good. No mention of tops, and on a previous flight Des Moines had said tops were reported at 8000. One PIREP of turbulence along the route. Weather was in the 5-800 Overcast area. Des Moines was a good alternate. Surface temps were in the +6 degC range. I knew from earlier briefings there was an inversion aloft. Here is the sounding for Ames around departure time:
So anyway you can see that its basically perfect IFR weather, particularly for Iowa in early March. This flight was great for Matt on many levels. First he was incredibly bored during the taxi to the runway since there was so little to do. Since all of his logged time, up until today, is in taildraggers, the not so challenge of taxiing the 182RG was pretty boring. Then of course there was the whole operating a high performance / complex aircraft that was a little step up from the 140. Add to that that the ceiling was at 700 AGL and we would soon be in solid IMC for over an hour was quite overwhelming.
As we headed for Fort Dodge we heard a Saab 340 make the ILS into runway 6. I thought about trying to get a PIREP from them on ice but didnt manage to fit it in. Outside air temps at 4000 were in the mid to low 40's. Center dropped us to 3400 MSL and cleared us for the approach when we were about 25 miles out. We flew through a few areas of pretty good rain and some decent turbulence. Barreling along fat dumb and happy the three of us were really enjoying ourselves. Discussions about operating in a non radar environment, basic attitude instrument flying and single pilot IFR techniques ensued. Matt really caught on fast to keeping the airplane straight and following the VOR.
As we were approaching the outer marker I was heads down to double check that frequencies and courses were set up correctly for the ILS and to know what our next moves were. Upon looking back up I saw several areas of ice on the windshield. Leading edges of the struts were starting to build a little rime as well. Here is the sounding for Fort Dodge for about the time we were there:
According to the sounding we would've been in warm air at 3400, but it seems the sounding was slid to the left a little in reality. Actually, from the sounding, it seems the actual freezing layer would be very thin, which is why I think the Forecast Icing Potential was so low in the Fort Dodge area, only about 15% at 3000 feet:
But no matter what the soundings and forecast said, we were in ice. This was the only real point where I asked Matt for a decision. Up until then he was doing a fine job of following the VOR and other directions I had given him. I was helping with all radio related work. So when I asked him "What do you think we should do?" he was sort of task saturated at the time anyway. His immediate answer was "Turn around" Sounds good I thought, so over my shoulder. "Kent, got any opinions on the situation you would like to share?" "Turn around and climb" It sounded to me like I was flying with a couple of smart pilots so around we went and up we went. I called center and told them we were breaking off the approach and headed back to Ames. Reported the light rime ice and we were on our way. Within the next 5 or 10 miles the ice was gone and we were cruising. The rest of the trip was pretty boring really. Kent and I talked Matt through a passable ILS into Ames and he made a nice crosswind landing in an airplane that requires about double the rudder force as his 140. Logbook entry was something like:
Intro High Performance/Complex/Tricycle/IFR/Ice flight. Lots of firsts!!
Anyway we had a great flight and all 3 of us were walking about 10 feet above the ground after landing. Great debrief and discussion over beer at supper. Now Matt is off to listen to CFICast #14 "CFI's on Ice".
)