@achimha there is a lot of good info in your contribution to this subject. I id a lot of flying last week in Germany and virtually freezing level were already around FL50. What means by the time somebody would like to climb through the cloud layers to fly Vfr on top,
(:-) , you would be facing temperatures around -5/-7 degrees. given the moisture picked up during climbing, enroute and decent, certainly an exit strategy is required. fortunately, tools like topmeteo, granmet etc are very helpful in routeplanning and allow planning a route that allow flying at lower levels closer to the freezing level.
Can you give some more details about the flight?
you won’t get ice in VFR, will you
I beg to differ. I had my worst icing incident VFR. Just a quick shower under a nice big could, too bad it was freezing rain.
@Vref why do you descent into CU/TCU clouds? I woulnd´t do this (only approach) for cruise, you fly the same clouds only blind! Why no higher climb and avoid hdg´s?
Where did I mention that I do this? 
Of course you try to avoid as much as you can but this doesn’t work always….
Another example to tactically plan your mission ahead (I am learning on every flight 
)
Finally the weather is improving but last Friday I picked up ice in between layers FL140 (around Vilshofen) Not much but enough to descent a bit lower. There was no icing conditions reported… ( So you can have it any time in temps below 0 degrees IMHO)
On this particular return flight I was routed by eurocontrol over the mountains Graz then North West. No other path was possible ectrl (another thread for discussion .
I tried to get a re-routing on ground but that didn’t work out. Lost an hour on ground etc..So I solved the re-routing directly with the controller after the handover from TWR to Budapest Info (solution cam in less then 3 minutes with some points I proposed myself) to avoid hi- terrain and fly more northerly initially cut the corner around Vienna CTA then West bound along the Danube. If I would have flown the Graz route the clouds where building up rapidly with plenty of humidity and would have put me potentially flying through cold cumuli clouds 7/8 at altitudes which my NA Bonanza can’t handle >FL140 and the only way is down…and over 3000meter terrain is not where i want to be in this circumstances not even talking about a potential engine problem that could occur….
Ice is a serious hurdle which can be avoided with the correct planning lateral and vertical with a good plan B but not when the freezing levels are below MSA
I think this was posted before, not sure though:
Just came across this one
As we are getting to that time of the year again I would like to bring up this topic again.
The Autorouter GRAMET documentation explains when the green icing layer gets drawn. One sentence from that documentation is:
An icing index between 30 and 80 is considered as moderate, a value above 80 as severe icing.
However I fail to see where I can see that value. All I see is a green area without further detail.
This thread picks up from the SR20 crash discussion here
Peter wrote:
But for sure the “freezing rain” is nonsense below the 0C level.What about supercooled water droplets?
what_next wrote:
A whatever Cirrus with only one person on board should be able to climb quickly above that altitude.
Some years ago I was on the Met Research Flight where we conducted icing trials, I recall one evening near the Scillies when we found that a 4 engine turbo-prop could not climb fast enough to prevent ice build up on equipment that was not de-iced. Even from a 240 knot zoom climb.
Freezing rain:
USFlyer wrote:
The FIKI system on the Cirrus is certified for flight into known icing. The system is complete…wings, vertical stab, elevator, prop and windshield can be treated during flight.
That won’t save you in severe icing if you can’t climb or descend out of it.
Tumbleweed wrote:
What about supercooled water droplets?
That is a phenomenon at high altitude where water remains in a liquid state with temperatures below zero. On contacting a plane, it freezes on impact.
