In article
,
a wrote:

There was a bad frost at KBED a long time ago when I training for my
private, long before first solo. My instructor and I went to the Piper
140 -- windows were coated with frost. He suggested we turn the
airplane to the east so the sun would work its magic. As we were
moving it, another instructor walked by, saw what we were doing, and
asked "Hey, moving it closer to the sun?". We were of course doing
that, but I think the difference in the inverse square of the distance
to the sun mattered less than the change in cosine of the angle of
incidence. But what did I know, beitng a student pilot?

I would expect that instructor would put to shame the spammers on this
site: he had an overpowering intellect AND a sense of humor. Oh, and
he was a real pilot too. He would not be a "Loser On Line".

Reminds me of my first visit to the local wave camp three years ago.
Showed up really early in the morning, got the club two-seater (which we
had trailered over from our usual airport) out of the hangar, prepped it
for flight, and then let it sit out in the sun to clear the frost from
the wings.

As we're standing around talking and waiting, my instructor, who was
once head of the Navy Test Pilot School, turns to a younger club
instructor who I think had no non-glider experience and asks, "How much
frost on the wings starts to worry you?"

The younger instructor gave him an interesting look, and replied, "ANY
frost on the wings worries me...."

We waited for it all to sublime, then had a nice flight. And I learned
an interesting lesson on the different attitudes people can take. (And
I'm not saying either one was necessarily wrong, it's just interesting
how different the attitudes were and how clearly they were shaped by
their respective past experiences.)

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon