Icing

[shamrock104]

Interesting topic on icing and on the what not to do etc etc. Most of us should no that its a no go where it concerns the majority of light aircraft and known icing conditions. We rely on winds and temp aloft charts, PIREPS etc etc. What other means do we have available to us in flight planning and in what order should we be looking at these? Maybe if we can get this knowledge out there it will allow Pilots to make safer decisions and leave the aircraft in the hangar.

[Doc]

Is this something new?

[shamrock104]

Nothing new, maybe I should have explained the question a little better. What patterns should we perhaps be looking at on charts rather than just freezing levels? Maybe I have pretty much covered them earlier.

[Sidebar]

We rely on winds and temp aloft charts, PIREPS etc etc. What other means do we have available to us in flight planning and in what order should we be looking at these?

I'm not sure the order matters. Check the GFAs, they include an icing forecast. METARs and TAFs are also helpful. Low clouds with sfc temp around 0 likely = icing in cloud after takeoff or on approach. Freezing rain or drizzle in the METAR or TAF is a strong indicator of bad icing conditions aloft. Take time on the ground to decide. Be prepared to abort the flight and make sure you have lots of options.

[lilflyboy262]

Frontal activity....

[MrWings]

If the birds are falling from the sky don't leave the ground.

[Colonel Sanders]

The GFA should tell the story, but ...

In the summer, warm fronts are generally pretty boring
but sometimes lead to low ceilings and vis. The question
is whether or not a non-precision approach with it's MDA
will get you down enough, or you need to find an ILS. Or
LPV.

In the summer, cold fronts can be very active and when
they are moving fast, can produce violent Cbs which are
worthy of respect. Strong winds, hail, etc.

In the winter, cold fronts are generally pretty benign,
and are good news with respect to in-flight icing. The air
behind them is colder and drier and doesn't suspend as
much moisture, which is often frozen rooster-stiff.

In the winter, warm fronts can be extremely scary.
Specifically the north-east quadrant of a low can produce
icing that you just don't want to be in for very long. Dive
down through it, or climb up on top of it if you have a
very powerful de-iced aircraft, but for Christ's sake don't
try to cruise (or hold) in it. What you're looking for is a
strong flow out of the south - you can easily see it on
the intellicast.com radar animation - which pumps moisture
up from the USA. That's really bad news.

[x-wind]

Another way to see forecasted icing, among other things, is to use Nav Canada's Automated Supplementary Enroute Weather Prediction (ASEP) found in the Route folder. I use it every trip.

For dangerous weather & when the atmosphere is doing unexpected things I'll occasionally look on flight aware for aircraft in the vicinity of my route and call the nearest tower or ACC and ask them to get a pilot report. All aircraft on flight aware have filed a IFR plan.

Significant Weather Prognostic Chart is a good tool when A to B is a couple provinces away.

Give pilot reports. Also, remember web cams.

[Doc]

I'll keep this brief.

It might be forecast, and never happen.
It might not be forecast, and you can get covered in it in a matter of minutes.
Bottom line? Common sense rules the day here.
Become familiar with the 180 degree turn.
That is all.

[goingmach_1]

Interesting topic on icing and on the what not to do etc etc. Most of us should no that its a no go where it concerns the majority of light aircraft and known icing conditions. We rely on winds and temp aloft charts, PIREPS etc etc. What other means do we have available to us in flight planning and in what order should we be looking at these? Maybe if we can get this knowledge out there it will allow Pilots to make safer decisions and leave the aircraft in the hangar.

Pretty simple for me. Clouds are water vapor. Plus temps in clouds means no-ice, minus temps means icing.

Dont over analize it if your not icing equiped and IFR rated. VFR means remain clear of cloud, I think thats a rule, right?

[shamrock104]

Thanks for some very good advice. Just like most other unpleasant weather that can come our way when flying I see that "common sense" and a healthy respect appears to be the common theme here. Like a lot of things you can pick up a text book and learn about weather and its causes but its not always as easy to get the respect and common sense across.

[Colonel Sanders]

Become familiar with the 180 degree turn

Listen to Doc. You enter icing in an aircraft that doesn't
have the equipment, tell ATC you are doing an immediate
180. Don't wait for a clearance.

You would be amazed at how many junior pilots would rather
die than annoy ATC, or TC. Lots of them fly Caravans.

Many, many people reading this would rather load up and
crash and die, than have a CADORs filed on them. Where
they got this insane fear of paperwork, I have no idea. It's
really not that bad, getting registered letters from Enforcement.

[chinglish]

If ATC doesn't want to play ball you can declare and emergency and turn whichever way you want. It was previously posted but there really isn't that much paperwork to do after..

[goingmach_1]

Another comment I'd like to make. If you are planning on being in icing, especially low level, like 20,000 AGL and below, be aware of what your machine can do. From my expierence, aircraft that typically fly in this environment are in their max performance envelope. De-icing/anti-icing equipment has a very narrow level of protection, and once you become overwhelmed, you might have gone too far. Further, I have seen some of the worse icing encounters around the freezing point and just above the ground. Like 5,000AGL and lower.

So, word to the wise. If you suspect an encounter, and your not flying a super-dooper Falcon 900EX with red hot leading edge anti-icing protection, get pireps, look at the type weather, frontal, airmass, trough, trowal. Make an informed decision. Know your limitations, know your machine. If in doubt, stay out of there. There's always another day.

We fly in some of the most hostile weather conditions on planet earth. Icing is one of those conditions. Not saying stay on the ground if its cloudy, I'm suggesting you need to be prepared.

[Doc]

If ATC doesn't want to play ball you can declare and emergency and turn whichever way you want. It was previously posted but there really isn't that much paperwork to do after..

"Centre, alpha, bravo, charlie, encountering moderate to heavy ice, we are doing a 180 now, in the turn at this time, thousand up or down, your call....". They will NEVER give you grief on this. Ever. Trust me on this one.

[Colonel Sanders]

Right - simply tell ATC what you have to do,
if you're going to live for very much longer.

I don't know why so many people are more
afraid of a registered letter, than dying. I'm
probably pretty weird, but I'd rather have a
stack of 100 registered letters from Enforcement
on my desk to answer, than to have killed
myself and my passengers. Guess I'm a
dinosaur or something.

Like staring at a Cb, right in front of me. I'm
not going to fly through it, to keep ATC and
Enforcement happy, for God's sake. I'm going
to call up ATC and tell them I can go 30 left or
20 right - which do they want?

[G.N. Thompson]

Was surprised to hear consultant for big OSB mill admit that at -10C with 8 knot wind their emission was unlikely to freeze but at -20C "most of it will freeze"...so in other words we have super cooled liquid aloft in the control zone for most of the winter. Not nice if buried in low cloud, fog or snow in the dark.

[ea306]

You are correct...

Not to Hijack the main thrust of this topic however as a side point to your comment.....
In the 1980s I was a Process Control Tech/Operator for an OSB mill in Alberta. Was how I financed my flying career.

The dryers reduce the moisture content of the wood product down to generally 3-4% on the core materials and 5-7% on the face material that goes into the production of OSB. The small remaining moisture is needed so that the resins and wax flow throughout the board as it is being compressed. Too much moisture and the material blows out under the extreme pressure...not enough moisture and it does not bond properly. One can only imagine the tremendous amount of moisture that is being dumped into the atmosphere when you consider the sheer volume of wood material that is being dried each and every hour of production.

Point for aviators:
The steam coming out of the dryers of an OSB mill is heavily saturated with very hot warm moist air. This is stating the obvious. That warm super condensed moist air blended into an area of low cloud at low minus temperatures near an airport will definitely be a strong source of icing. Should only be a small localized area affected of course...however a consideration if it is on an approach to an airport.

[200hr Wonder]

And boy are they good at putting mills on approach to airports.