Flying in icing conditions high workload forgot prop heat

[Unregistered]

As the title says. I've owned a FIKI plane now for a year and have been in icing conditions off and on only a few times since I general avoid getting into icing at all. My last encounter was an eye opener though. I was departing an airport in a busy area pretty much right as a line of storms was popping up (and not forecast to be as bad or as soon as when I took off). While climbing I got into moderate turbulence and was really busy dealing with that. ATC was very busy with lots of complaints of moderate turbulence and requests to deviate. I had two young passengers on board too their first time flying! So you can probably appreciate I was dealing with a lot (one of them was throwing up). The windshield iced up and I saw some moderate icing on the wings so turned on the de-icing equipment and again got really busy dealing with the turbulence and shrieking from my passengers.. Then I noticed my rate of climb dropping all the way down to 100 ft/min! Engine power was fine and I increased that to maximum and changed to alternate air. Definitely nothing wrong with engine power and yet still only 100ft/min. This is at the recommended ice penetration speed. The de-icing equipment was keeping up from what I could see. I was just about to request immediate lower then I realized I didn't have prop heat on. Turned that on and wow what a difference in the space of a minute! It reminded me once again of the importance to refer to checklists especially when single pilot IMC in tough flying conditions with lots of distractions.

 

[docmirror]

I'm not judging, but would like to know if you launched into weather from your departure airport, was it below landing minimums?

 

[frfly172]

Don't want to be critical,but why would you take two young people into IFR,with icing?

 

[JOhnH]

As the title says. I've owned a FIKI plane now for a year and have been in icing conditions off and on only a few times since I general avoid getting into icing at all. My last encounter was an eye opener though. I was departing an airport in a busy area pretty much right as a line of storms was popping up (and not forecast to be as bad or as soon as when I took off). While climbing I got into moderate turbulence and was really busy dealing with that. ATC was very busy with lots of complaints of moderate turbulence and requests to deviate. I had two young passengers on board too their first time flying! So you can probably appreciate I was dealing with a lot (one of them was throwing up). The windshield iced up and I saw some moderate icing on the wings so turned on the de-icing equipment and again got really busy dealing with the turbulence and shrieking from my passengers.. Then I noticed my rate of climb dropping all the way down to 100 ft/min! Engine power was fine and I increased that to maximum and changed to alternate air. Definitely nothing wrong with engine power and yet still only 100ft/min. This is at the recommended ice penetration speed. The de-icing equipment was keeping up from what I could see. I was just about to request immediate lower then I realized I didn't have prop heat on. Turned that on and wow what a difference in the space of a minute! It reminded me once again of the importance to refer to checklists especially when single pilot IMC in tough flying conditions with lots of distractions.

Thanks for the post; and the reminder.
In case of emergency, stay calm and pull out the checklist.

 

[Brad Z]

Thanks for sharing!

If you get a chance, track down some opportunities to do some recurrent training in a high level sim. When you get a ton of stuff thrown at you, it becomes second nature to react appropriately. As you found out, learning while you're in the soup with distractions is not ideal.

Also, the "isolate" button on the audio panel is a good thing in situations like this. You need to focus on flying the ship, not on barfing passengers. If you don't have one, get one.

 

[NoHeat]

It's good to learn from your experience. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Ted]

Don't want to be critical,but why would you take two young people into IFR,with icing?

Because there was a reason to get somewhere?

One tip to consider in the future. Whenever I'm taking off and expect that I might get into icing conditions, I turn on pitot heat, prop heat, and windshield heat as I'm taking the runway. It won't hurt any of them to stay on. So that way they're on if you need them, working silently in the background. Also, keep prop RPMs high when getting into icing. That will help natural shedding. Then turn it off when you're in cruise if you're above the clouds.

Prop de-ice can be somewhat fickle. That's just the nature of it. As such, it is a good idea to keep an eye on the prop de-ice ammeter if you can, but obviously focus on flying the plane first. It sounds like you were doing that well and handled the workload sufficiently overall. At some point, the de-ice will fail on you. I go into icing assuming that de-ice is going to fail, so I have my outs planned out ahead of time.

 

[Greg Bockelman]

Don't want to be critical,but why would you take two young people into IFR,with icing?

If properly equipped and trained, why not?

 

[Unregistered]

I'm not judging, but would like to know if you launched into weather from your departure airport, was it below landing minimums?

Conditions were perfect at my departure airport with ceilings at 12,000 feet or thereabouts. As I started to roll the tower announced that a line of storms was popping up just to the south and it all developed rapidly within the space of 15 minutes or so. The forecast did call for storms but several hours later so it caught a lot of us by surprise. I also have weather radar and could see clearly a line between the cells. Obviously I would not have flown into a solid wall of heavy precipitation. All would have been perfect if I had turned on the prop heat right up front, along with the pitot heat (good recommendation Ted). Even so at no time was I in danger. I was at 13000 feet when I ran into this problem with climbing. If I had no solved the problem, I would have descended back down into warm air so I had an out.

 

[jesse]

Because there was a reason to get somewhere?

One tip to consider in the future. Whenever I'm taking off and expect that I might get into icing conditions, I turn on pitot heat, prop heat, and windshield heat as I'm taking the runway. It won't hurt any of them to stay on. So that way they're on if you need them, working silently in the background. Also, keep prop RPMs high when getting into icing. That will help natural shedding. Then turn it off when you're in cruise if you're above the clouds.

Prop de-ice can be somewhat fickle. That's just the nature of it. As such, it is a good idea to keep an eye on the prop de-ice ammeter if you can, but obviously focus on flying the plane first. It sounds like you were doing that well and handled the workload sufficiently overall. At some point, the de-ice will fail on you. I go into icing assuming that de-ice is going to fail, so I have my outs planned out ahead of time.

What Ted says. When there is little disadvantage to turning the systems on early and there is a reasonable expectation of ice I would get them on in advance. You can always turn them off if you find out you were wrong.

The other advantage to the above approach is if the system wasn't working you could likely know about it BEFORE you got into the ice.

 

[docmirror]

Conditions were perfect at my departure airport with ceilings at 12,000 feet or thereabouts. As I started to roll the tower announced that a line of storms was popping up just to the south and it all developed rapidly within the space of 15 minutes or so. The forecast did call for storms but several hours later so it caught a lot of us by surprise. I also have weather radar and could see clearly a line between the cells. Obviously I would not have flown into a solid wall of heavy precipitation. All would have been perfect if I had turned on the prop heat right up front, along with the pitot heat (good recommendation Ted). Even so at no time was I in danger. I was at 13000 feet when I ran into this problem with climbing. If I had no solved the problem, I would have descended back down into warm air so I had an out.

Thank you. Check lists - can't leave home without em!

 

[Dave Siciliano]

In the King Air, we have the hot six; we turn them on before departing if going to the flight levels or anytime OAT is below +5 or expected to be. Heating the windscreen makes it more flexible if hit in the cold air above. Fuel heat is always on. Fuel vents, pitots and stall warning. As Ted said, I don't put on prop heat unless actually encountering icing conditions or expected conditions. Ice vanes deployed on my plane too. Check lists are always good if it's not an emergency memory item. This wasn't an emergency from what you said to begin with, but sure could have become one. In addition to the checklist, keep cross checking critical systems both to make sure they're on and that they're working. Recurrent each year really does help. Sounds like you're flying a pretty capable plane. Every year, I learn something there or have good habits reinforced and poor ones pointed out.

Taking youngsters or any inexperienced passengers up without help can be a real problem if something goes wrong. With young kids, even a passenger brief won't do much good. Too bad you couldn't get another adult to go. Quick building storms can change fast, but my plane will turn around if I don't need to go through them. What was the emergency? On board RADAR is great, but it only show PRECIPITATION, not turbulence. I've gotten some of the strongest turbulence when RADAR was clear. There's some rapidly rising air there and probably a weather system hitting jet stream or other oncoming air. Hope you'll reconsider if faced with this again. Blasting through rapidly building storms isn't a great idea unless there is a large gap. Go over, around if possible. I've parked and waited them out more than once.

Best,

Dave
Best,

Dave

 

[wsuffa]

The only time I started to pick up prop ice, I knew it real fast - thanks to the vibration. Immediate request for lower was granted & the ice shed very fast. Conditions were such that icing was not expected.

 

[Unregistered]

In the King Air, we have the hot six; we turn them on before departing if going to the flight levels or anytime OAT is below +5 or expected to be. Heating the windscreen makes it more flexible if hit in the cold air above. Fuel heat is always on. Fuel vents, pitots and stall warning. As Ted said, I don't put on prop heat unless actually encountering icing conditions or expected conditions. Ice vanes deployed on my plane too. Check lists are always good if it's not an emergency memory item. This wasn't an emergency from what you said to begin with, but sure could have become one. In addition to the checklist, keep cross checking critical systems both to make sure they're on and that they're working. Recurrent each year really does help. Sounds like you're flying a pretty capable plane. Every year, I learn something there or have good habits reinforced and poor ones pointed out.

Taking youngsters or any inexperienced passengers up without help can be a real problem if something goes wrong. With young kids, even a passenger brief won't do much good. Too bad you couldn't get another adult to go. Quick building storms can change fast, but my plane will turn around if I don't need to go through them. What was the emergency? On board RADAR is great, but it only show PRECIPITATION, not turbulence. I've gotten some of the strongest turbulence when RADAR was clear. There's some rapidly rising air there and probably a weather system hitting jet stream or other oncoming air. Hope you'll reconsider if faced with this again. Blasting through rapidly building storms isn't a great idea unless there is a large gap. Go over, around if possible. I've parked and waited them out more than once.

Best,

Dave
Best,

Dave

All good points. When I launched I did not know the extent of these storms, just a warning from the tower (as I was doing my takeoff roll) that a convective line had popped up 10-15 miles to the south. Before leaving my hangar I had checked the weather one last time and there was nothing, so it really must have popped up in the space of 15 minutes or so. I wouldn't have gone if I'd seen this. The location did not give me a lot of options once I was up either. I asked for an immediate deviation but was told unable because what I needed would have put me right in the arrival path of a large airport. The best I could do was to go through a gap between the cells. You are absolutely right though with a developing system like this you can get some pretty serious updraughts/turbulence without any significant precipitation yet. All in all it was a good learning experience for me.

 

[0luke1]

I find it amazing that prop heat and anti-ice aren't tied together with at least an annunciation on the master caution panel.

My non-FIKI Columbia has TKS - you can put one on without the other with no warning - in an aircraft that has warnings about everything else. Makes no sense to me.