RXH, cool! Same for you – if you are intersted in flying the SR22, let me know!
By the way: do we KNOW each other? :-))
Well, What Next – then you go ahead testing how much ice your plane can take, and i don’t, Easy.
I am only a CRI, but you cannot compare practice stalls with deliberately flying into ice. First of all: stalling is legal, flying into ice is illegal. Second you will only spin if you stall and yaw at the same time. Also the results are predicable and all certified airplanes will recover from a spin (and, yes, the Cirrus too). Also there are well established standards about HOW to practice stalls, and at what altitude. And so son … but you know all that yourself.
Last year about 1000 motorcycle riders were killed in Germany, and many of them without making any mistake themselves. That’s not very common in aviation.
By the way: no, i don’t see a risk flying through an isolated cloud and having some ice on the windshield. But taht’s a different concept than checking “how much ice your plane can carry”
do we KNOW each other?
No, we have not been formally introduced yet.
I happened to walk past your hangar with a friend when you pushed the Cirrus inside and he mentioned your name.
Also, your picture is on the LSV-membership gallery. You can find a photo of myself there as well (I am the only one with the initials RH who has a picture up). The guy who pointed you out to me is portrayed there as well. When you scan the pictures, he is the one holding up a beer glass. ;-)
By the way: no, i don’t see a risk flying through an isolated cloud and having some ice on the windshield
Actually you could pick up some quite unwelcome ice on the prop that way, enough to make it vibrate. You could also pick up some 1cm of ice if it was the wrong sort of cloud, though that would be very unusual…
flying into ice is illegal
No, because “ice” is not definable, and IMC below 0C is certainly not simply definable as “ice”.
Flight into known icing conditions is illegal with a plane that is not approved for it. Do we really have to discuss this? I was not talking about 0 degrees celsius or IMC – i am talking about known icing conditions. If the weather report tells you that there IS icing – then you are not allowed to enter these conditions.
i am talking about known icing conditions. If the weather report tells you that there IS icing – then you are not allowed to enter these conditions.
OK – we have to disagree here again.
Which weather report?
I have never seen a European weather source which can even forecast IMC to any accuracy other than “very crude”. For forecasting ice, good luck!
What if I set up a free weather website and it forecast icing conditions for Germany, all year. Would you then not fly? That is what we have in the UK (the F215). If you didn’t trust my website, and departed, what would be your justification? What if I got a degree in meteorology – would you trust it then? The US data (GFS) is useless for highly localised specifics like icing areas. Do you think Germany has discovered some amazing bit of physics?
There’s an ice forecast for all of Europe on PCmet, all the time. You are requiered, by law, to get a weather briefing, and if ice is forecast for a region or altitude then you are not allowed to fly into it.
What you are saying is that there are no “known icing conditions”.
But there clearly are. They are in all flight weather reports, and there’s PIREPS too, and you have to read those.
If there were no “known icing conditions”, what would be the difference between a SR22 with FIKI and one without?
You have to use all available flight weather services (PIREPs too) to make sure that your planned flight does not lead you into icing conditions.
Having flown a FIKI MEP in Northern Europe you do develop a safety case for going FIKI Turbine! Over ten years only a couple of occasions where the boots were struggling, however the aircraft was able to still climb on top – a turbine with a 2,000 fpm RoC+ would have been nice. On a few occasions had brief encounters with SLD, fortunately with breaks in the cloud – it is like flying into jelly and quite un predictable.
The SigWx shows areas of light/moderate icing in the airways most days – the US convention, I believe, is that a Pirep makes this ‘known icing’ – as few Pireps are issued in Europe I expect this convention is not relevant over here?
In short icing can be un predictable – my risk appetite in a non FIKI SEP might extend to light day IFR away from convective/frontal zones.
Incidentally, SEP fatal accident statistics are much better (i.e. lower) than MEPs, and FG SEPs are better still. The boring 172 and PA28 may be better by a factor of three or four than the typical GA piston fleet. An experienced 172 driver, who is current and IR therefore may be approaching quite acceptable societal safety levels!…albeit on a non FIKI SEP mission profile.
