Flying through known or forecast icing

wrote:
In rec.aviation.ifr Matt Whiting wrote:
: This has certainly been my experience also. I recently flew from
: Lebanon, NH to ELM on a day with the freezing level around 4,000 and an
: MEA of 6,000 across the mountains of southern VT. I picked up some
: light rime and requested higher and got between layers. The clouds
: again arose to smite me, so I requested higher again and broke out on
: top at 10,000. My requests were calm and matter of fact and the
: controllers were extremely accomodating. There was never even a hint
: that they questioned why I was flying an Arrow on such a day.

Because you didn't have a problem, they don't have a problem. If you had
*had* a problem, they would have found this problem and busted you. Isn't it great?

Maybe, but I really doubt it unless my problem resulted in an accident
or maybe a "deal" for the controller if I had to make a descent that
they couldn't clear quickly enough. Even though I've flown in northeast
winters for 28 years and tend to "take a look" even if icing is a
possibility, I've only once ever gotten into anything I'd call trouble.
Even then, I didn't need to declare, I just needed a block altitude
clearance so I could descend until I could maintain altitude.
Fortunately, I reached the equilibrium altitude prior to reaching ground
elevation. :-)


Matt