bq. And scary ice buildup during climb with several centimeters on all (visible) non protected areas.
Between which levels was it? I had a look at the chart and was wondering if I had a flight planned would I go. We are FIKI certified but rather slow in the climb so that we are exposed to the icing quite a moment.
That was during the climb from Stuttgart, temperature on the ground was plus 8 degrees C. Heavy icing started around FL80 and lasted until FL150. Initially I only used engine anti ice to get better climb performance. When I turned on wing anti ice (maybe around FL120) the whole aeroplane was shaking due to unevenly melting ice. Never experiened anything like it. The windscreen was totally opaque (covered with seveal centimeters of ice) for most of the flight. Windscreen anti-ice has almost no effect at speeds above approach speed so I didn’t bother to turn it on.
Here is a picture of 150kt crosswind (the photo with 152kt didn’t turn out well as there was quite some turbulence as well). Never seen a WCA of 20 degrees at Mach 0.64 before… The yellow triangle is the ground track,
So I had almost no icing this morning (only from FL80 to FL100). A slow trudge to EDMO but OK as the German controller were helpful in letting me avoid the +40% Eurocontrol route. Very bumpy and windy on arrival with winds 22G33
Left Munich tonight for the UK and had to endure the 100knot headwids for a 3:10 return which is slow. Crossed a front over Belgium at FL280 in the dark and had moderate turbulence right across the channel. Followed by a lovely flight across the North of London with a great view of the lights on a nice night.
Finally a visual approach to Oxford was a more relaxing way to finish a long few days.
Very interesting to hear how you use your aircraft as a real transport machine.
Isn’t it great that such a dependable dispatch rate allows you to rely on it pretty much how you would a car?
Ya gotta love those turbine engines. :-)
E
I fly as well all winter in a FIKI Cirrus.
Just found this article on an icing accident in a TBM700. The whole icing indicent (from VMC to IMC to accident) took place in about 5 minutes time. Makes me think …
http://www.aopa.org/AOPA-Live.aspx?watch=%7b9CC22A1C-9960-43A5-AC03-3757498BE36C%7d#ooid=g4bWpuZzr-DPJUjV5CYMZF_y24Z2ob-q
Good video – thanks for posting it.
My take on it is that he lost control of the plane, took it way through Vne (or maybe over-stressed it), which on a TBM will take only 5-10 seconds, which broke off the wing, and after that he was obviously finished.
The loss of control may have been wing icing, or an elevator stall. Almost nobody knows how to recover from an elevator stall. There are some good videos on it but the reaction time may not be available even if you know how…
Otherwise, loss of wing lift due to heavy ice can be dealt with by pushing the nose down and letting airspeed build up, and that should also eventually get you out of the severe icing zone.
That one could get so much ice in a few minutes doesn’t suprise me at all. I’ve had it myself, in totally nonconvective conditions at 4000ft.
Were there CBs in the area? I can get radar archives for Europe (meteox.com can go back a fair bit) but don’t know of any US ones.
I wonder if the “rattle” at 9:30
was actually a stall buffet? That – even if misidentified – should be an instant clue to get the nose down.
What would chunks of ice coming off the air intake and hitting the back of the duct sound like? But I don’t think the ice would be falling off (ice normally doesn’t fall off static surfaces until you re-enter warm air) so I wonder if their comment about the inertial separator is applicable. Would ice forming on the prop hit the wings as chunks of it come off?
Almost nobody knows how to recover from an elevator stall.
Unfortunately, that is true, because it is usually not taught. Even airliners have been lost due to tailplane stall, the last one not so long ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
I wonder if the “rattle” at 9:30 was actually a stall buffet?
That’s impossible to say. Can be any portion of the wing or tailplane that stalled, or turbulent airflow (due to the ice) over one or more control surfaces. Or imbalance of the propeller.
What would chunks of ice coming off the air intake and hitting the back of the duct sound like?
There shouldn’t be any pieces of ice forming at all because the air intake is heated.
Colgan 3407 was NOT an icing related incident. It was crew incompetence-related.
They stalled a perfectly serviceable aircraft by not putting any power on when levelling off, then the Captain fought the stick pusher all the way into the ground.
Josh you are right and the crew was fatigue!
Jason, did you land at EDDM? If yes what was it like? I once asked and was told 200 Euro plus a PPR which seemed hard to get. All GA aircraft that I saw parked there so far have been bigger jets.
Hi Sebastian. No, EDMO which is really nice. No mandatory handling which looks expensive if you take it.
Jason.
