is there consensus that light GA (even with TKS) wants to avoid clouds when a glory can be observed?
I think all clouds are “wet” at the top, and indeed all the way through. So it depends on the temperature. Say just above the cloud it is -3C and sunshine. You can expect the inside of the cloud to be immediately -6C. That gives you 3000ft in which to collect ice. That’s OK if you are going down anyway and there are no obstacle clearance issues during the subsequent descent and melting the stuff off.
What you obviously don’t want is
I have never had a practical icing issue in descent (disclaimer: have prop TKS).
They asked if I was happy to fly outside controlled airspace. I declined, fearful of the pain of getting re-cleared into CAS – which can be a problem in the UK
I am told by a French pilot that every French ATCO is radar qualified. In the UK that is not the case, because those ATCOs command higher salaries so nobody wants to employ them unless they need the qualification. Also French ATC is nationalised whereas in the UK an airport with no on-site radar is (according to rumour) paying about GBP 100k/year for a radar feed from NATS. So in France there is no extra cost attached to watching somebody all the way, no matter where they are.
Also in France every ATCO everywhere can see your flight plan, immediately AFAICT, whereas in the UK it is separated. If you file a Eurocontrol IFR FP, nobody OCAS will get a copy, and vice versa i.e. if you file one OCAS, even an IFR one, London Control will not get a copy. Even if you file a FP OCAS and it passes through various CAS airports, they won’t get a copy of it (unless you address it to them separately, but if you aren’t landing there they will prob99 discard it). It is only if you go missing that somebody can retrieve the FP from a special database which is maintained for S&R and national security reasons and into which every FP is copied.
The UK ATC scene is heavily political due to this stuff so it is almost impossible to get any UK ATCO to talk about it openly.
Why do you use oxygen at such low altitudes, starting breathing O2 at 5000ft until your cruise FL, where one usually (I actually speak for myself) don’t need it.
My rule is to take oxygen from 10’000ft onwards. I don it when I don my headset. The MH system’s setting “D5” starts delivering oxygen at 5000ft upwards. I guess I still find it cool to use the system which I bought last year … no other real reason.
@Stephan Schwab
That glory seems to be a dangerous beauty. Below 0C and high water content is surely a sign for a lot of icing potential. Good that you didn’t try to decent into it.
I actually did descend into it. The layer was thin and I did not observe icing.
@Bosmantico
Yes. Since you then stay on the same frequency, it is seamless.
Yes, I stayed on Paris Control’s frequency, talking to the same lady. The world did not collapse when I magically left controlled airspace :)
It was entirely seamless. She did keep an eye on me as she called out my QNH setting mistake while in uncontrolled airspace. Later she switched me over to Lille Approach and never we talked about controlled or uncontrolled airspace anymore.
Niner Mike,
I understand you pov, as I used to use my O2 as soon as I could when I started to fly at ‘higher’ altitudes, but it can be difficult to get O2 in airports (France or Switzerland), even relatively big ones…
I always give the airport a call to know if they can refill with aviation O2 or not, and adjust my cruise altitude in consequence (if I’m clear with the weather of course)
Sorry, but how many airports are there really in Europe that sell O2 like they sell fuell (i.e. 7/7, not by some based maintenance company, which would be useless on weekends).
I guess less than a couple of handfuls, probobly less.
No, planning on refilling O2 on a trip is a total no go.
Bosmantico: you’re definitely right!!
That’s why I use O2 very carefully if I can’t /didn’t plan to go back to my favorite repair shop where I know they have O2 for me… ;-)
Emmanuel,
The MH O2D2 set with a sizeable portable bottle gives me plenty, plenty of O2 range. I refill in a local dive shop near home. Peter thaught me well, i guess.
So i dont have outstation refill headaches while i do appreciate the issues with continuous flow or fixed systems.
Niner Mike,
I have a built-in O2 system in my Seneca, and I assume air flow is not as optimized as your system.
For 2 people onboard, I can fly at FL180 during +/- 5 hrs which is not much.
Great pirep.
However I have one question :
At waypoint VATRI, near the Chalons Vatry airport (LFOK), I received a direct to INSEB, the initial approach waypoint of the requested RNAV GNSS approach towards runway 19 in Auxerre. In France, upon request, ATC gives you the weather, so I knew that runway 19 was probably in use. They told me, nevertheless, that there was no AFIS on the airfield, so I had to switch to French auto-info, and close my flight plan per phone. ATC passed me the telephone number over the air.
The descent was started and I followed the RNAV approach diligently down to its on-precision minimums of 960 ft MSL.
Why did you choose 960 ft as your minimum ?
According to your chart, without ATS and without local QNH (note: a METAR doesn’t give you a local QNH) your minimim should be 1520 ft, no ?
