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Ron:
Your point is to be heeded in my view. Stay out of it as much as you can. I recall a wintertime flight from Baton Rouge to Grand Rapids, MI., non-stop, the whole flight over an undercast which had wintertime, smooth, level tops at 5000. The ceiling wasn't low--maybe 1500 or so. When given the descent to vector altitude for the ILS into Grand Rapids, as soon as I hit the layer, ice covered the windscreen. I popped back up and leveled off right above it. The controller called and asked, "N7735R, did I give you 4000? Are you level at 5?"
I said, "yes m'am, you did, but I hit some moderate ice and popped back up into the clear to sort this out. I was about to call you back."
She immediately shot back, "Roger that 35R. Maintain 5. State your intentions."
I said, "Well, m'am, my intentions are to not look stupid in the NTSB report. 'Spose I stay here and intercept at this altitude and take one shot at the ice in the descent?"
She said, "Good call. There might be less paperwork to fill out that way. Cleared as requested."
I landed with a teeny bit of ice but far less than had I tooled around in it for a while.
Why slog around in the nasty stuff if there's an alternative? ATC will work with us to make that possible if we just take advantage of their capabilities and ask. As a CFII, I've discovered that a lot of lower-time IFR pilots don't realize that. Work with 'em.
Walter
On Aug 24, 2005, at 8:45 PM, Ron Galbraith wrote:
I posted a picture of a line of thunderstorms a couple of days ago that was displayed on an ARTCC scope. I just wanted to relate to you all what else happened that night. Just after I posted that picture I was working the sector just East of that line of weather when I took a handoff from another sector of a C421 at FL180. I asked him if he knew about the weather ahead that he was headed right for the middle of, and he indicated that he didn't know about it, but that he was listening to other A/C talk about it. He had departed about 30 minutes earlier, so he could not possibly have gotten a weather briefing. I urged him to deviate or land and wait it out on numerous occasions. I issued him my required weather statement several times, and told him that all aircraft had been deviating way South of his course. At one point he was pretty arrogant and stated that he had on board weather radar and that he would be fine. This is exactly the problem we are having with most of the weather related accidents. This fellow has probably read all the NTSB reports, and says "that will never happen to me". Once again, he did indeed make it through the storm further re-enforcing his belief that it is ok for him to fly into known bad weather. The only way he will ever change his thinking is with risk management training. There were at least 40 airline jets that would not get close to that weather, and numerous bizjets that diverted even further away from it, all within the time I was talking to the C421. I guess he really needed to get to COS that night. Yes, it was also night.
Ron Galbraith
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