Ice - is it overdone

Well, What Next – then you go ahead testing how much ice your plane can take, and i don’t, Easy.

I am not the one who suggested to test “how much ice the plane can take”. I really only suggested that under the right circumstances it can be safely demonstrated to a student what airframe icing looks like. One one of these forums (can’t remember which, but probably this one here) someone even wrote that he would claim his money back if I as an instructor would not demonstrate this kind of thing. The reason was, that if he is not introduced to the effects of airframe icing under the supervision of an instructor, how is he going to cope with it when it happens to him sometime later.

First of all: stalling is legal, flying into ice is illegal.

Flying into known ice is illegal. Most of the time you only know (for sure) once your aeroplane is covered with it…

Hi “RXH”,
okay, found you. Of course I know Wastl, your fellow TB20 owner :-)
Maybe I’ll give it a try tomorrow and fly an hour …

what next,
it is not the point to know “for sure”. If icing is in the forecast and if there are Pilot Reports of icing – then you are not allowed to fly into these conditions. I am well aware that many of the IFR pilots don’t care about this and just “try” … But if you follow the rules this is clearly illegal.
You cannot force a flight instructor to show you something illegal and “claim your money back”. After all in Germany they will not even show you how to make 180 turn out of the clouds when you do your PPL.
Of course – if there was NO ICE in the forecast, it can still happen, and under these circumstances I will use my TKS and leave the icing asap. But on many days in the winter it is clear (as ice) that there IS icing in the clouds, and that’s a no-go.

PS: I have now read a document by the FAA where “known ice” is explained in a way that if THE PILOT after studying all available weather sources and Pireps comes to the conclusion that there MIGHT be ice in the clouds – then this qualifies as “known ice”. But it’s up to the pilot, contrary to what the rule was before. Actually I like that, because I will STILL not fly into icing conditions, and who prefers to ignore the facts is the the type of pilot who would have done it anyway.

By the way: TODAY in southern Germany NO ICING conditions and tops around 4000 feet… but with a cloud base of 500 you cannot reach the MRVA in VMC…. so no IFR flying

Yes, sorry – forgot to mention that. Of course it’s possible from a controlled airport. How do I get the plane there ? :-))

TODAY in southern Germany NO ICING conditions and tops around 4000 feet

What are the surface OAT, the cloudbase, and the tops?

For the tops, if you give me the ICAO code of some airports I can get the 1200Z and (after midnight) the 0000Z wx baloon ascents from here

BTW Peter,

Re the soundings: do you know if there is a good rule of thumb as to which relative humidity usually means “cloud” and which means “no cloud”?

In the end I guess it also depends a lot on the season and the type of cloud…

BTW, I didn’t know Great Britain had basically no useful balloon ascent points…compare with Germany…

do you know if there is a good rule of thumb as to which relative humidity usually means “cloud” and which means “no cloud”?

See here

Near the beginning I have a little table which I got for a UKMO meteorologist.

The UK used to have more points; one near Gatwick EGKK which disappeared fairly recently.

That article is still current but Meteoblue has vanished, I believe. It was never all that great; I found it good for confirming stuff which I could have guessed from the MSLPs, but it was quite good say 6-12hrs before the flight. OTOH GRAMET just doesn’t forecast most stratus cloud, especially the 2000-4000ft stuff.

Thanks. That small table is interesting.

I do like the Skew-Ts (called "TEMP"s by the german weather service) based on actual balloon ascents because it is always better to do the short-term weather briefing using “facts” and “actual measurements” rather than “forecasts” and “models” (such as GRAMET or the DWD’s “cross sections”).

BTW, the german weather service mentions a 10 degree spread as the minimum to denote “clear” conditions, but I guess they are just more conservative when giving official guidance.