Ice, while soaring...

Hard to believe he had ice on the airframe without flying through visible moisture.
 
Lance F said:
Hard to believe he had ice on the airframe without flying through visible moisture.
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Speculation: He spend 30 minutes at 20K plus - which could have chilled the wings quite a bit. Then during descent through a hole he notices "frost" over the wing spar - ot could have been cold enough for condensation / frost.
 
I've also read stories of pilots going through virga in sailplanes picking up ice. Depending on the airfoil It can really degrade your L/D. Some of the Wortmann FX profiles are really succeptible to contamination ice/bugs/water etc.
 
Going through virga sounds bad enough. Doing it in a sailplane and picking up ice sounds like a real "opportunity" to demonstrate "superior airmanship.":yikes:
 
I once read of a guy setting an altitude record in a sailplane, with the sealed barograph and all that. He got to target altitude OK but it took longer than anticipated and his oxygen was running low. To get down quick he put it into a spin, and during the many turns on the way down he passed through a cloud layer and picked up enough ice to freeze the controls in the pro-spin position and couldn't recover. The ice finally came off at something like 1000' AGL.

Dan
 
Yeah in the olden days they used to do some pretty insane things to achieve Diamond altitudes (5000m altitude gain) like thermalling in towering CU. I just finished "Soaring for Diamonds", and the story of thermalling in a clouds using only needle ball and airspeed is just frightening!

Thankfully nowadays the majority of diamond altitude flights are done using mountain wave, which is slightly less insane...
 
Dan Thomas said:
I once read of a guy setting an altitude record in a sailplane, with the sealed barograph and all that. He got to target altitude OK but it took longer than anticipated and his oxygen was running low. To get down quick he put it into a spin, and during the many turns on the way down he passed through a cloud layer and picked up enough ice to freeze the controls in the pro-spin position and couldn't recover. The ice finally came off at something like 1000' AGL.

Dan
Click to expand...

That is a flight that would even make my black slacks turn brown. Holy crap.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Speculation: He spend 30 minutes at 20K plus - which could have chilled the wings quite a bit. Then during descent through a hole he notices "frost" over the wing spar - ot could have been cold enough for condensation / frost.
Click to expand...

I vaguely remember a jet (MD-80 series?) that would pick up condensation ice on clear, moist days on descent. The fuel tanks in the wings would stay cold. I kinda doubt the sail plane has the same sort of thermal mass.
 
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