Never saw freezing rain myself, but few months ago I was departing into a warm front, pouring rain and heard a commercial jet report severe icing. It must have been nearby..
Often when I depart in heavy rain, after passing zero isotherm, I get “AIL→” warning. As if the ailerons froze and servos coudln’t move them. I then use CWS for a moment to get ailerons moving again with a little crunch. Anyone else here with this problem or is it just my plane? First time I experienced it in IMC at night with rain and strong side wind, AIL→ showed up and plane started rolling to the side. Quite disorientating.
That’s pretty scary actually! What does your POH say? Mine says Autopilot should be off in icing conditions, to prevent ice bridging the control surfaces. But when in icing it’s usually a high workload scenario, so I leave the AP on and remove it every couple of minutes, wiggle the ailerons, elevator and rudder, then put it back on. I also watch the trim very closely, and grab the yoke solidly before turning off the AP.
As if the ailerons froze and servos coudln’t move them. I then use CWS for a moment to get ailerons moving again with a little crunch. Anyone else here with this problem or is it just my plane?
That is utterly wrong and scary, for a certified plane which is supposed to have sufficient clearance around the control surfaces. Especially a TBM which is supposed to be well engineered.
However, no plane is certified for freezing rain so maybe you really are pushing it to that limit. But even then it sounds very wrong.
If it happened in circumstances other than freezing rain then I would check e.g. whether the correct lubricants were used. I have had my elevator freeze at FL140 (at -14C) due to the shop using some dodgy motorbike-market spray lube and there are plenty of similar stories due to the same cause including one of a pilot I know well having had it in a CJ3 at FL300.
It will be going in for service this month and I will report. It doesn’t happen in icing conditions, just rain on the ground is enough.
Blocked drain holes is another one to check.
loco wrote:
Often when I depart in heavy rain, after passing zero isotherm, I get “AIL→” warning. As if the ailerons froze and servos coudln’t move them. I then use CWS for a moment to get ailerons moving again with a little crunch.
That is not normal.
In fact, that doesn’t produce freezing rain in most circumstances. The layer between 4000 and 5000 ft will normally be snow (or an icy mix), not rain.
How reliable is this?
I might be about to test it 
EDNY 140820Z 01007KT 6000 -RA BKN011 OVC028 03/02 Q1017
I would expect the 0C level around 1500ft.
Yesterday I had zero icing from 3000’ all the way up to FL120 (solid IMC). Top of clouds was 11500’. I flew a northwesterly track.
Peter wrote:
How reliable is this?
I might be about to test it
EDNY 140820Z 01007KT 6000 -RA BKN011 OVC028 03/02 Q1017
I would expect the 0C level around 1500ft.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you got icing in the cloud — in fact I’d be a bit disappointed if you didn’t, having cancelled my flight out of EDNY this morning for exactly that reason. :) Though a PIREP from Timothy at 0815 this morning suggested no ice at all to 120.
I would be surprised if you got freezing rain below the cloud.
I could not test it because by the time we got going at 1000Z the rain had stopped (as forecast). There was no ice seen but then I had the TKS running flat out all the way to about FL130 so would not have seen much unless it was really heavy. Tops were about FL130. Unusually cold, -23C at FL150.
On the original topic, the TAF did say RA or SN. And I can see that above the 0C level is is likely to be snow which then melts further down. This is what is seen all the time in ski resorts where you get snow on the hills and rain in the town below. If this was freezing rain then it would be a huge problem because it is a really common thing.
