IFR just 5.4% of the time

Jay,

Doesn't matter of your the Ace of the Base -- if you're flying a
Cherokee in February, you're gonna be sitting on the ground a lot.


Well, I'm not sure I agree. More often than not, you will have the
required "out" even with a danger of ice present.

The other day I made a 1.5 hour flight in the Tobago that would not
have been possible VFR - or not really well.

The forecast for the departure area with an ILS-equipped airport near
was stratus from 700 feet with tops at 2500 to 3500, visibility 4000
meters below the clouds. Serious scud running would have been required
VFR, something I would want to do, even though it would have been legal
in Germany. Freezing level at 3500 to 4000. Minimum enroute altitude
4000, MRVA 2000. Icing forecast in clouds above freezing level.

So with bad luck, we might just have ended up in icy clouds for a very
short time during climb-out. But we could have returned on the ILS
below the freezing level, so we had an out.

In reality, we came out of clouds at 1800 and flew the first hour in
the sunshine. After that some cumulus clouds popped up to 8000. So we
climbed on top. We entered some cloud briefly in the climb and picked
up very light trace ice. So flying in the clouds at our previous
altitude of 5000 definitely wouldn't have worked.

At the destination, the cloud cover became scattered to few at 1000
AGL, so we could make the landing at the VFR airfield as planned,
picking our way around those. Had that not worked, there was an ILS-
and rental-car-equipped airport 20 nm away reporting CAVOK.

Winter IFR is often quite doable.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)