…freezing rain, sometimes from convective clouds rather than the warm front type which would be expected to occur in IMC, can occur in VMC in areas of good visibility and quite high ceilings – being convective its in the form of SCLD, rendering the trusty puddle jumper into a popsicle relatively instantaneously.
I have been in VMC (I can’t actually remember whether I was IFR or VFR) and entered one cloud top and within a very few seconds (<10) the windscreen was whited out and by the time I had completed a rate 2 180 the ice on the wings was 1" thick and flowed back beyond boots, towards the control surfaces. Severe icing can happen in a very short time indeed.
It is not correct to say that icing only happens in solid IMC.
Peter wrote:
Yes, but if you are collecting ice then you are in solid IMC and thus aren’t VFR
I USED to think that …. until you actually pick-up ice in freezing rain.
Be careful, it DOES happen.
(Hmmm, looks like a couple others beat me to it ! )
I have been in VMC (I can’t actually remember whether I was IFR or VFR) and entered one cloud top and within a very few seconds (<10) the windscreen was whited out
If you enter a cloud top for 10 second, then you certainly aren’t VMC.
By “solid IMC” I take it that Peter means not reduced visibility (mist), but inside a cloud.
I meant it in the sense of “I was walking on a pavement and crossed the road.” I agree that I was in IMC at the time of the incident, but had been, for a considerable time up to that point, VMC.
I don’t classify that as “solid IMC”.
I do have an IR, and have gone back to VFR only.
While I did enjoy IFR flying (and when I was doing it regularly, I was living in the US – I owned a Cessna 140, and for IFR flying used our very good flying club’s aircraft), with my current situation, I’d have to own an IFR suitable plane to contemplate IFR flying. This would quintuple my annual costs and at the same time I’d probably only get one or two additional trips per year in. It’s just not worth it at this point in time.
I did hold an IR, it expired and now I need to redo it from scratch if I ever find the time.
Worst aviation decision I ever took letting it lapse. By the sound of it, I’ll have to resit all exams and do quite a lot of flight training to get it back.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I’ll have to resit all exams and do quite a lot of flight training to get it back.
At least the exams are much more accessible now than they were when you last did it.
You still have to waste a bit of your life at some ground school FTO like CATS. But some can be done online.
And the material is the same crap as it had been since JAA started c. 1999. Hammering the online QB is the only way.
Not much has changed IMHO, and the old 700hr route (which was the route used by most UK CAA IR holders who did it decades ago) is long gone.
I would not be criticising it if the material was actually relevant to flying. But it is so far divorced it’s a joke. The CBIR QB is out of the old JAA ATPL QB; no more relevant material has been included. You can’t fly IFR in Europe with it, alone.
