It's time to sharpen your skills for the winter flying coming up!
Winter always brings with it the unique challenges of blustery days, slick runways, icing, lower IFR weather, and higher winds at lower altitudes. Physiological concerns are also present - remember the survival gear! As the summer flying season winds down and we settle into fall, I would challenge all pilots to remember to do some brushing up on their winter flying tactics and techniques. This is the time of year where having a strategy with multiple conservative outs is going to pay off the most. It's also the time of year when most pilots, including myself, cancel more flights than in the warmer months.
Decision making processes might also be affected by the colder weather. How many of us have taken a few minutes less on the preflight walkaround, had to make a call about icing we weren't comfortable with, or been uncertain in the face of some kind of weather phenomena? You might even find your personal minimums changing as the weather gets colder and the insidious side of weather moves in. Icing has a tendency to sneak up on pilots and many don't remeber what to do when they have contaminated wings. Here's a hint: your flaps could kill you!
A couple of reminders:
-Do not extend flaps with ice on the wings. The change of airflow could cause a main wing stall or (possibly worse?) a tail stall. If you've never seen a tail stall, I'd recommend doing it in the simulator. It really grabs your attention and you have all of about 6 seconds to respond before the parachute isn't even a plausible option anymore.
-Never take off with any kind of frost on your wings. You could be giving up a potential 30% of your lift before you even leave the ground!
-If you push a plane into a heated hangar to melt the ice off, be VERY careful to dry it off before taking it out. I remember numerous times in Duluth where we'd melt the ice, push the plane out, and find that the liquid water had run into the hinges and re-frozen in just a few minutes. Fortunately, this was in Duluth where it was so cold that the water froze before we could take off. Imagine what would happen if we'd had the time to leave the ground?
-Turbo operators should use more gentle engine operating techniques to help ensure the temperature change of their engines doesn't happen too quickly (and result in unnecessary wear and tear). I use a max power reduction of 5 inches to start (assuming cruise), and then 1" MAP per minute thereafter. 360 degrees on the CHT is the magic number to watch for: above that temp the metal parts of the engine are significantly weaker.
-The answer to "What do you do if you get ice?" depends largely on the situation... and thus the knowledge of the world around your flight is paramount. The order of procedures is 1) Try to melt the ice and get to warmer air 2) Get out of visible moisture 3) Get to an area that is so cold that the ice will no longer form. That last option is almost always a hard one to pin down since ice can form at some pretty low temperatures. Knowing what you have for MEAs along the route, where the nearest clear air is, where the cloud tops are (remember where the worst ice hangs out?), and an awareness of the freezing level will go a long way towards making the call here.
-Just because you have TKS, you do not have a license to fly into areas where you think ice is plausible. People hate me for saying this and I get all kinds of guff about it, but that's ok: It isn't safe! Don't do it.
If you want to practice some scenarios where you find yourself in ice, some decision making processes that might prevent you from getting there in the first place, what to do in a mountain wave, see what a tail stall looks like, or learn a few things about how to predict icing before you ever leave the ground, give us a call. As we have full motion simulators in Las Vegas NV and Indianapolis IN, I can recommend those resources to safely practice some things I hope you'll never have to encounter afterwords.
COPA members should tell us about reading this post when they call to reserve their training slot and we'll give a 10% discount off the sim rate!
Safe flying everybody,
-John Fiscus
Chief Pilot, The Flight Academy
www.theflightacademy.com 
Posted
Oct 13 2008, 04:32 PM
by
John Fiscus