I was supposed to depart 3/27 for Munich. Looking at the weather for a few days to get the feel of what was happening. Of course it changed a few times during the week. The return date will be on the 30th. That too has changed but considering how much of a time interval it is its not surprising.
Well I use RR and I checked the weather on it the night before as well as Weather Underground, Accuweather, Weather Channel, a local Hungarian weather service and Auto router. So with that info it seemed as per usual I would enter weather over Austria and at destination. Of course icing is a real possibility with any cloud penetration this time of year especially at 10,000’. Nothing ventured nothing gained so by looking at the forecast if I had less time and less capable airplane I would have stayed on the ground and still be on the ground in Hungary. But I figured I could always return to LHTL even if I went to destination and decided to return.
So off I went into Scattered skies. Charged the TKS and pitot heat on as I climbed to Altitude. By the time I got to the Vienna area I was between layers. By the time I past LOWW at 10000" with an outside temp of 12F Im flying in IMC. Pretty stable with mild turbulence. All of a sudden I hit freezing rain. I mean it was intense in 10 sec had 1/2 inch of ice. I asked for an immediate climb to FL120 which I got climbing through FL110 I break out into clear sky not climbing above but breaking out of a larger and higher cloud.
Funny thing was that at FL120 the temp was 3F. So where the the rain come from? Isnt it supposed to be from warmer air above. Well not in this case. The TKS got rid of the ice after a while. For the next 20 mins or so I had intense P Static on the radio which also affected my ADL 140. I finally turned the unit off to be able to have it connect to the iridium service. Now mind you unless the precip was very fine snow which I could not see I dont think I was flying through precip. though there was a higher overcast which was not very thick The rest of the trip was on top.
The destination according to the forecast was supposed to be 700’ with 1 KM at destination. But over EDMM it was partly cloudy. The visibility was certainly better than 1 KM and did an ILS 25 anyway. It was a pain since I had to loose a lot of altitude to make the FAF at 3500’ within gear down speed of 140 KTS.
Certainly could not have made the trip VFR. Not sure about the Freezing rain when the temp at higher altitudes was even lower than at the alt. I picked up the Freezing rain.
Just want to share the unusual.
Could you share the significant weather map ? Maybe IR and radar also at the time of the flight ?
Good that you’ve done it.
Actually your aircraft is capable. Deciding to climb from FL100 while you where heavily freezing is surprising. Weren’t you afraid about the actual climb performance ?
Ah I left the page to look for the Gramet and of course the detailed report disappeared. So Im going to summarize.
The flight left LHTL at 10:21 Z Landed EDMA 2hrs 25mins
Warm air above allowing freezing rain to fall. So figured To zoom climb from 10000’ to FL120 probably could gain 1000’ in 30 sec then level off and gain back speed to 135IAS but in no instance allow the IAS to drop below 110IAS. The plane had been charged with TKS prior to entering clouds; about 10 mins prior to the FZR incident. So it did not stick so well.
Part 1 unfinished but will continue later
Part 2
The date was Tuesday 27th of March. So if you can look back the weather great Im going to try and attach the Gramet which I downloaded. So at 10000’ the temp was 12F at FL 120 it was 3F Didnt go any higher but Im skeptical that it would rise to above freezing at higher Altitude. Any way once I climbed to FL110 I punched out of the cloud bank and Freezing Rain. I was on top but below a higher layer about 15000’ that was not too thick because I could occasionally see the sun. The rest of the Gramet prediction was true except at the destination which had been report 1KM vis with Sct 1200’ but by the time I got there 30 mins it was clear and 5NM vis so VFR but to practice I did an ILS 25 approach. It was a slam dunk approach because a little pas Munich airport I was still at FL100 and given vectors for the approach.
I will post this then attempt to attach Gramet in the next Post.
Peter wrote:
10 seconds is some going, and obviously having a turbo helps hugely with one’s options. The normal procedure would be to do a very fast 180 however.
In this case I would have picked up a lot of ice since it was accumulating so fast. I felt the best course was higher since I got the clearance immediately and started climbing right away.
The Gramet I find is accurate 70% of the time which is a lot better than I can say for the WX brief I get from trying to pull all sources together via the computer.
No I dont have a turbo just an IO550 otherwise I would have flown the trip at FL160.
GRAMET added in post #6.
Thanks for helping out Peter.
C210_Flyer wrote:
No I dont have a turbo just an IO550 otherwise I would have flown the trip at FL160.
Isn’t IO550 enough to cruise at FL160 ?
