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Flying experience in our beautiful and capable machines.
Flew across the Cascade mountains between the eastern side of Washington
State and Seattle on the Western side. Solid IFR. Icing was in the
forecast and icing reported (PIREPS) in the descent into Seattle between
FL:110-130. 6 degrees C air below at KBFI. So the plan was to stay
high and descend quickly. Seattle Center and Approach control are
agreeable. We descended at 1500 fpm and picked up ½" rime ice between
12,000 and 11,000 feet at -2C. Leveled out at 10,000 and 0C. Rudder
was frozen. Elevators would only go down but not up (climb). I could
forcibly hold the elevator to maintain altitude. The autopilot could
not hold altitude. I did not forcibly try to remove the ice. When ATC
released us to descend to 6,000 feet we were clean of all ice very
quickly.
The plane flew with that amount of ice on the leading edge just fine.
No prop vibration. ATC did a great job of altering their normal let
down over the mountains vs. over the warm air over the Seattle area.
The autopilot performed flawlessly, coupled to the ILS on LOC and GS.
Took us on down to 800 AGL where we broke out landing in the liquid
sunshine.
We departed later the same day. Poured rain all day. 500' ceilings and
1.5 miles visibility. Climbed out southbound to stay out of the ice.
Broke out at 7,000 feet to VFR conditions and no ice for a beautiful
trip home with Mount Rainier sticking up through the clouds.
Our descent into Pasco to shoot an ILS was normal except that one speed
brake would not deploy. I had just had them to Precise Flight to have
them apply their "fix". The initial asymmetrical deployment certainly
makes the plane going into a 30 degree bank if you are not on top of it.
Several attempts at deployment did not work. So we turned into the ILS
still descending and 180 kts. We had just enough time to level out, get
our speeds down to lower our other speed brakes (our gear) and had
another easy coupled approach to 700 feet.
Conclusions: We obviously have our elevator counter balance in the slip
stream and should have left more than 3/8" gap between the horizontal
stabilizer and the elevator counter balance.. The same can be said of
the rudder and it's 3/8" gap.
Make sure you have warm air below to thaw off the ice or hope and pray
you can bang the ice off the control surfaces. A rudder and elevator
are real helpful especially landing.
So where is the de-ice system for these planes? I am on the list at
Lancair. It is still not ready to go as I understand it from a recent
conversation.
Someone also mentioned that there was a silicone that pilot's spray on
the leading edges that keeps the ice from sticking for a short period of
time. Anyone know about this? Brand? Does it help?
How do I keep my speed brakes from freezing after sitting in the rain?
I do have wing drains.
Carl Cadwell
N25CL, IVP, 280 hours
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