Go/nogo guiz qustion of the day.?

Question

given the following metar, 05007KT 4SM RA BR BKN006 OVC010 02/01 A3001 RMK AO2

The sky is broken at 600 ft and overcast at 1,000 ft. The surface temperature is 2°C with rain. There's no convective activity expected, but the rain is steady. Clouds are forecast to be layered to 20,000 feet. No mountains. Daytime. No ice protection.

The plan is to depart IFR and fly eastbound at 9,000 feet. Is that a wise plan?

Answer 1

Go cautiously, I would rather go at 7000. I would just hope that the lapse rate was slow today and maybe not even lapsing cause of the high pressure. But I am from Northern MI so we look and say...................GO!

Yeah I guess it would snow up there huh. Its hard to think these all the way thru and cover everything knowing I am not  gonna have to go and fly in this WX. I guess this is why I suck at writtens. I would still do 7k to stay out of the pooh.

Answer 2

If there is no icing equipment on the A/C then you are becoming a test pilot.

If you can be convinced that you will fly quick enough not to get icing to the point that you will loose your airfoil, then go.

My opinion is that as long as the low cloud cover is thin you can fly, but keep an eye on the rain. if not do not attempt. not with a small single.

Answer 3

The aircraft has no ice protection, and with the surface temps at only 2 degrees, There is no question you will be in below freezing temps after climb.. Even if the lapse rate is not standard.  There already is  some form of precip coming down. (it could be frozen, but melting just prior to hitting the ground and being reported as rain)

A broken layer is still visiable moisture, and although the fist layer might be above freezing, the remainnig layers are more than likely not, so ice is almost a given, unless their is an inversion, I would have to look at the FD's, and prog charts, but thats such a small gray area..  with no way to fly above or below potential icing conditons,  Daytime or night, its still not what i would fly into..

Answer 4

I know that this statement will create debate because even the FAA can't agree on this, but the latest interpretation of "known icing conditions" is temperatures near or below freezing in areas of visible moisture - no matter if icing has been reported or not.

Taking a looser interpretation of this, are there reports of negative ice and/or an inversion layer?  I wouldn't be surprised about an inversion given rain and winds out of the east.  Given the temperature, I'm assuming I'm not in Florida or a coastal area, so easterly winds and rain would suggest a low pressure system passing to the south, meaning flying east would bring in a warmer southerly flow aloft.  If reports from other planes that are certified to fly in icing conditions confirm this, it may be a possibility, but I wouldn't plan on 9,000 feet.  I would stay at 3,000 to 5,000 (maybe 7,000), assuming that's where the warmest air is and it is above the MEA.

Without any information or reports of temperature inversions, it's a no go for me.  Bottom line: I have reason to believe the possibility of ice exists.  If I encounter ice, do I have an out?  Looking at the weather you gave, no, there is no "out".  Can't climb above it because the clouds are layered too high and the temperatures would be too low to shed any ice.  The ceilings are too low to fly below it.  Again, the temperatures are too low to shed ice going lower while still staying at or above MEA.  Given a standard temperature lapse rate and no temperature inversion, there wouldn't be a safe altitude to shed ice if it were to accumulate.

Looks like another day of hangar flying for me...

EDIT:  Cherokee, I see where you are going with this... I enjoy the level of thought that you put into these questions.  In theory, I can see how this would work quite easily... In reality, it sounds like a really nasty day somewhere within 20 miles of the departure point with possibly rapidly changing weather.  I won't give away all of my thoughts on this because I'm interested in hearing other thoughts... but I'm still sticking with my original answer unless my thorough preflight briefing gives me a more clear picture of what's going on.  A warm front is one thing... A wavering quasistationary front is quite another...

Answer 5

check your minima, as well as the minima of aerodrome of destination. the weather seems to be pretty probable to get even worse.

the dew point is dangerously close to the actual temperature, rain indicated high humidity, too. expect heavy icing, at about 3000 ft ALT and above /minus 6 degrees celsius per 1 kilometer, or 3000 ft of altitude  thats the standard atmosphere layout /- this would give the -4 celsius at the given altitude.

I'd suggest special VFR / low vis VFR procedures for helicopters and small planes where applicable.

the overall weater layout seems quite familiar to me, resembling the autumn occluding frontal weather systems of Europe.

Well even without considering the 0 celsius isotermic level vertical position, you could pretty much suffer from the icing from the ground. any ram air inlets would have lower temperature and would be exposed to the icing formation in the conditions given. My procedures require me to start antiicing procedures from temperatures below +5 /sic/ celsius due to the risc of ice formation in the engine inlets

once again I suggest either to fly below the clouds, or not to attempt the flight without deicing/antiicing equipment.

Answer 6

Go cautiously? Jeez.

Answer 7

Looked to me like a normal op until I read "no ice protection" and "9,000 feet". I'll leave it to the piston drivers to answer.