Descending through a thin icing layer

Teacherjh wrote:
How can anything be beneficial to you if you don't make it?


I didn't say beneficial to you. I said beneficial. To (for example) your
heirs.

So they can sue God for putting ice in the air???

Matt

Roy Smith wrote:
In article ,
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote:


Roy Smith wrote:

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote:


To me, getting low on fuel in deteriorating weather is preventable
and doesn't thus constitute a bona fide emergency. It constitutes
stupidity.


Of course it's an emergency. I agree with you that it's most probably
stupidity and preventable, but that doesn't make it not an emergency.
It's just an emergency of your own making.

The feds may still bust your butt for careless and reckless, but in the
the here and now, it's an emergency.

I agree it is an emergency and should be dealt with as such, but I
wouldn't be surprised if the Feds didn't accept it as a reason to fly
into known icing conditios.


Well, if I'm running out of fuel, I don't give a rats ass what the feds
are going to do to me once I get my sorry butt safely on the ground.

That's why I don't get myself into a situation where I'm running out of
fuel! :-) There's just no excuse for it unless, as I mentioned
earlier, it is due to a leak or something else out of your control and
that didn't get noticed quickly enough.


Matt

Your condition is EXACTLY the same as that of a VFR pilot who relied
on a forecast of clear skies over his destination, went over the top,
had the forecast go bust, and is now trapped above a solid layer. The
only difference is that he's more likely to come out of this unscathed
than you.

I would think a well trained IFR pilot could descend through 2,000 feet of
below freezing visible moisture far more safely than a VFR pilot through
non-freezing visble moisture.

I would think in most case, the descent would just pick up a little light
ice and not affect the flight much at all.

You use "would" in both sentences. That denotes supposition. Are you
unsure about what you are saying?

"Wyatt Emmerich" wrote in message
...
Your condition is EXACTLY the same as that of a VFR pilot who relied
on a forecast of clear skies over his destination, went over the top,
had the forecast go bust, and is now trapped above a solid layer. The
only difference is that he's more likely to come out of this unscathed
than you.

I would think a well trained IFR pilot could descend through 2,000 feet of
below freezing visible moisture far more safely than a VFR pilot through
non-freezing visble moisture.

I would think in most case, the descent would just pick up a little light
ice and not affect the flight much at all.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Wyatt Emmerich" wrote in message
...

Let's say you take off on a long cross country with no forecast of
icing.
By
the time you arrive at your destination, a 2,000-foot layer exist below
you
with temps of 30 F. You are getting low on fuel. Is it legal to descend
through the thin layer even if you are in an airplane without known
icing?


Who knows? Better play it safe and run out of fuel above the clouds.

Best newsgroup response in months!!!! "-))

If you dont have reports of ice then its not known to you, so decending wouldnt
be a problem, if you start picking up ice while decending, then you report it to
ATC and then its known to the next person behind you.
its only against the law to fly known or forcasted icing. If others have landed
ahead of you and not reported ice then you have no worry.


Wyatt Emmerich wrote:

Let's say you take off on a long cross country with no forecast of icing. By
the time you arrive at your destination, a 2,000-foot layer exist below you
with temps of 30 F. You are getting low on fuel. Is it legal to descend
through the thin layer even if you are in an airplane without known icing?

Shhhh!!!

The lawyers haven't figured out that you can sue God yet!! You'll blow his
cover!


"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in
:

Teacherjh wrote:
How can anything be beneficial to you if you don't make it?


I didn't say beneficial to you. I said beneficial. To (for example)
your heirs.

So they can sue God for putting ice in the air???

Matt

Roy Smith wrote in
:

"Wyatt Emmerich" wrote:
snip
If I was stuck in such a situation, I would declare an emergency to
make sure ATC knew my predicament. I would get them to solicit pireps
from people in the air right now to make sure I knew where the floor of
the clouds were. Then I would get a clearance to descend, pilots
discretion, to an altitude known to be below the clouds.



For those who seem to be afraid to declare an emergency, I think it would be
equally safe to declare a "Critical" condition, which would draw nearly the
same amount of attention from ATC, but since you don't necessarily require
priority at this point, you don't need to do that yet. Perhaps once you are
in the soup and start building up enough ice to be dangerous, you need to
change over to an Emergency declaration and get priority handling, but it
seems to me that 99 out of 100 times you will get the same level of priority
and attention without the formalities simply by declaring a "Critical"
condition.

From my perspective, if you tell the controller what you have and what you
are concerned about, they will do their best to cooperate even if you don't
declare an Emergency...

Just MHO...

I didn't say beneficial to you. I said beneficial. To (for example) your
heirs.


How so?


By possibly disarming a lawyer. It establishes the fact that you are
excercising your right to ignore an FAA reg becuase of an emergency. You may
still be on the hook for causing the emergency (if you did) but you'll be off
the hook for violating the rule.

If it's not on tape, then you might just get busted for violating the rule
(which would be credited with directly causing the accident).

Somehow, I think the lawyers have more ammunition to give your heir's
inheretance to whatever victims there may be.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

In article ,
Judah wrote:

Roy Smith wrote in
:

"Wyatt Emmerich" wrote:
snip
If I was stuck in such a situation, I would declare an emergency to
make sure ATC knew my predicament. I would get them to solicit pireps
from people in the air right now to make sure I knew where the floor of
the clouds were. Then I would get a clearance to descend, pilots
discretion, to an altitude known to be below the clouds.



For those who seem to be afraid to declare an emergency, I think it would be
equally safe to declare a "Critical" condition, which would draw nearly the
same amount of attention from ATC, but since you don't necessarily require
priority at this point, you don't need to do that yet.

Works for me. The goal is to make sure you get whatever help you need
from ATC. In this case, it's a clearance to execute a high-speed
descent through the clouds at a time of your choosing. If you're
somehow hung up about saying the E-word, and you think saying "Critical"
will get you what you need, go for it.

Just make sure ATC knows unambigiously what you need. Don't assume.
The thing you're trying to avoid is getting halfway though the descent
and having ATC level you off for traffic because they didn't understand
the icing situation. Or park you in a hold because they didn't
understand your fuel situation. ATC can't read your mind, and most of
them (while expert at their jobs) are not pilots so they don't see the
world the way you do.