Cripes! How tough was it to get the smell of human excrement out of your flight suit?

You're welcome, Jay. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

Welll.... nothing as adrenaline pumping as trying to hit a pitching deck.... or taking ground fire...

This was several years ago in the little deb .
Mine started benign enough. A 150 nm fall night VFR flight to see the folks. Beautiful clear night...vfr forcast.... clear skies... light winds.

About half way through the flight...... monitoring ATIS information enroute... the temp dew point spread started converging and visibilities started going downhill.... FAST!

The only precision approach at that time in South Central Oklahoma was the ILS at Ardmore. I got a "pop up" clearance and started to the Initial Fix. Every time I listened to the ATIS info on the number 2 radio... the visibility was lower..... and temp depoint had converged to the same number.
I was "concerned" I wasn't going to get the approach shot before the wx went below minimums. Broke out just at minimums and landed.

Would have really been in a bad situation had I missed. It was the wx pattern where we get ground fog for hundreds of miles over vast areas..... and everything below minimums.

Since then.... I always look at VFR forecasts at night with a jaundiced eye.

Leldon

Last Thanksgiving weekend Chicago to NE Indiana. Nothing bad about ceiling or visibility since it was 800/2 miles. The problem started about 70 miles out with moderate/severe icing. I was in a FIKI P210 and 500 lbs under gross. It took full power and a 200 FPM decent to maintain 130 knots which was as slow as I wanted to get with 3" of ice on the plane that I could not shed. Hand flew the plane the whole time and shot a GPS approach straight in. Go-around was not an option. Hardest approach I ever shot since the plane handled like a Mack Truck with flat tires. It is the last time I ever flew a single IMC below freezing and will never happen again. While it was satisfying that I had the skill (and some luck) to handle the emergency, it was also a real eye opener that I want the most capable plane I can afford to fly IMC around here in the winter. If it won't climb 1500 FPM with everything forward and best rate speed then I don't fly it in the winter here.

I have had 21/2 inches of ice on the Baron. No boots just alcohol props and windshield. The Baron seemed to handle it just fine. The approach and landing was uneventful. I certainly wouldn't make a habit of flying in ice but in the Midwest if you fly in the winter there is often a potential for ice. There are a lot of days with 1,000 ft ceilings and 3,500 ft tops that have ice in between.

Russ

JOOC, where was the ice accumulating, on just the unprotected surfaces or were the boots and prop deice overwhelmed by the conditions? Were you getting horns? If so, where on the airframe?

I was flying in from Valdosta, GA into Gary a few years ago in the middle of winter with my business partner. Gary was reporting ceilings of 500 feet, visibility 3 miles in snow and light winds. It had been snowing heavily for several hours.

We descended into snow showers; the flight was smooth as silk and the dry powdery snow was producing no ice. We lined up for the ILS for runway 30 and broke out into a winter wonderland at about 500 AGL. The runway had not been cleaned and I made one of the smoothest landings I have ever made (the 2-3 inches of powdered snow on the runway was a contributing factor). I had a smile on my face for the next three days

I wish I would have taken pictures, but I had both hands on the yoke trying to keep it in the sky. I was running the boots every 2 minutes knocking off 3/4"=1" of ice with every cycle - I am not exaggerating here at all. The ice that was breaking off was reattaching to the wing in a criss-cross pattern forming "icicle fences." The fences reminded me of the wooden fences that WWI soldiers would put in front of their trenches.

As things got worse and my angle of attack had to increase (roughly to 10-12 degrees) I began getting mixed ice under the wings that eventually formed icicles towards the back right at the flaps.

Towards the end of the adventure, every time I accuated the boots the plane would significantly yaw. Luckily the temp was 33 degrees when i broke out 800 ft above the airport and the ice came off in almost one uniform process. I found out why my plane was yawing with boot deployment after I landed. The tail was removing the ice from one side of the horizontal stab, but not the other. I removed a 3 1/2" thick piece of mix ice from the left side of the tail. It looked like a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it. The wing roots had ice balls attached to them that were twice the size of a softball and the top of vertical above the boot had the same thing.

A 757 in Chicago and a Saratoga 30 miles West of me both made emergency landings due to ice. TKS would have been much better. The plane went for sale that night and was sold within 30 days. Had I been in my Baron I could have climbed out of it right away. The P210 just doesn't have any reserve climb power and is dangerous in the ice.

My most satisfying instrument approach was the first one I made as a brand-new instrument pilot. That was quite a while ago.

I flew my wife and son on a two hour trip to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. I had become a legal instrument pilot only two days earlier.

I departed into an 800' overcast. 'Never left the clouds again until just before the runway came into sight. I landed at minimums of 500'. No autopilot in that plane. I felt completely at ease, in control, and enjoyed every minute of it.

I got great satisfaction from that flight. I knew I had trained hard and well. I had become a capable pilot, master of my domain. That was a very satisfying experience, a "first". There can never be another first instrument approach in solid IMC for me, or an approach more satisfying.

I have a lot of good memories. This one is in the "special" category.

Take off into 700'overcast out of New Orleans Lakefront, gear up and into the clouds, level at 3000 heading north over the lake, banging sound, thought rod or something was fixing to go through the cowling, declared emergency, vectored for the approach, all is well, wife and children have shoes off by now, wife briefed on water landing, oil pressure still good, on localizer now, GS alive, down into the soup, 800', 700' out into the clear, my god what are all those firetrucks doing? Now I am really scare, nice flare, good landing, fireman motions me to exit. Fireman walks over to wife's side and opens door, "Mam is this your seatbelt?" I will remember it until the day i die.....

Brand new instrument rating. Had never been to Kissimmee, Fla much less made an appoach into it . Into IMC about 50 to the north and all was well until I was assigned the NDB approach. Weather being reported to be at mins for that (500'?) I began asking (begging) for the VOR ,but was told unable due to conflicting traffic into Orlando. So my butt began chewing on the seat and I began the approach. Broke out at mins and not too far from the airport. Will never forget that one!

This approach into Merrill Field at Anchorage was especially satisfying (we broke out at circling minimums):
http://vimeo.com/6781472

I mentioned the night approach with fog forming I did earlier in this thread...worried if I had to miss... would I have enough fuel to find somewhere to land.

I've also commented about ground fog forming over large areas in other threads in our area.

Take a look at what is happening tonight from Nebraska to south Texas... not good. May get more widespread later tonight...

http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/ta ... rsTafs.php
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/ta ... rsTafs.php

Ask me what I think about tip tanks

Leldon

Hi Leldon,

Widespread areas of LIFR (where an approach can't theoretically be completed because weather is below minimums) are troubling for me.

I really like having options (a VFR 'out', the ability to shoot an approach should something go wrong, etc.). I feel like widespread LIFR takes a lot of those off the table.

I don't have tips, but it's a rare trip indeed that I depart IFR without full tanks, and *most* of the time, I can fly west for two or three hours to good VMC. Hell, worse comes to worse, I'll fly to Marfa- I can always bum a bed there!

Fact is, though, when the spreads start to crowd like that, I just don't trust the weather enough to launch on a trip of any real length.

Couple months ago, I left for T82 with forecast at JCT (best predictor, *usually*) calling for 2,500 broken or something like that, and T82 reporting 1,400 broken. By the time I got there, after a long wait for release and some headwinds, the ATIS was bouncing between 500 and 700 (the best you get there is a 700' minimum), so I took a shot at the GPS 14, figuring I go missed, I fly home to Addison (remember all that gas?).

I was goin' for the gear and gas when we spotted the ground (after the VDP), pulled power and landed just like I knew what I was doing. Twenty minutes later, while we bought pizza, the vis went to 1/4 mile in fog and the ceiling maybe 100'.

Oh yeah, and Junction? "Clear below one two thousand."

Thread creep...but what if your alternator goes "clunk". Tip tanks are great but we know these gear driven alternators can fail in such a way that it is important to get on the ground as soon as practical as engine damage may be occurring.

Not to mention all the other things that can (but shouldn't) happen. Smoke in the cockpit, whatever.

For me it's about options and I feel like widespread very LIFR takes away lots of options.

My alt goes, "clunk" over IMC, I am all mayday-mayday, load-shedding and direct to nearest appropriate approach...

...or, compass heading to pre-briefed nearest good VMC is available.