Mathew said:
Are you kidding me? You would rather take your chances with the reaper over the hypothetical chance that the FAA is going to come back at everyone that has ever said MAYDAY and deny them their pilot certificate? I guess the sky really is falling all around your part of the world. They would be grounding nearly every pilot with more than a few thousand hours, practically every ATP, CFI, DPE, etc.
Mathew, I have had half a dozen events flying where I could have declared an emergency. In all but one of them, there was nothing that a person outside the aircraft could do that would have changed the outcome.
VFR into un forecast IMC at night needs clearance from other traffic to change altitude out of it, which the FAA does not allow a controller to give you. The controllers work around that rule was to advise me that there was no traffic below me within 50 miles.
While this discussion of what the FAA did not allow proceeded, I continued to fly straight and level for 5 minutes with my windscreen covered with wet snow. With the crucial information, I made a standard rate descent to a warmer altitude. The controller was completely supportive, and I had the necessary skills to keep my aircraft under control, as long as I could get to a safe altitude. I did not have the rating then so could not air file an IFR plan. Declaring would have resulted in him requiring a whole string of information, souls on board, fuel remaining, etc, which I was not interested in supplying... Aviate, Navigate, Communicate were my priorities. I was on flight following, so they knew where I was, and where I was going. They also thanked me for the pirep, as they were not aware that any precipitation was happening in that area, let alone frozen. My flying before acquiring the IR was in the days of weather transmitted by teletype, and there were monster holes in what the briefer's knew.
The one that I should have declared was climbing southbound out of Hagerstown in a Cessna 172, on an IFR flight plan, and finding myself a hundred feet into in a cloud layer of freezing moisture at my assigned initial altitude, which was below my requested altitude. I advised Dulles approach control that I was accumulating ice, and needed a climb to a higher altitude (lower would not work, there is high terrain around there). Climb refused "There is conflicting traffic". Second call, with 1/8 inch on the struts, same answer. Third call, with 1/4 inch, I advised that I would need to declare an emergency if I could not climb NOW, and the climb was approved. 100 feet higher, CAVU existed, and not a single airplane in sight, nor any heading change to remain clear of traffic. I should have declared that emergency, and amended my destination to Dulles.
A visit with the tower chief to fill out that paper work might have been a two edged sword, as the chief determined real time, did that controller need to keep me in icing conditions that were not in my weather briefing just prior to my departure. The descent into Dulles would have certainly added more ice, but they had many more fire trucks and ambulances to sent out along the runway while I landed in priority over the big planes.
Instead, I flew to my destination in conditions that evaporated part of the ice. That controller gave me a cruise descent, I requested a steep descent on the assumption that icing might exist in the cloud layer there too, and he gave me "Pilots discretion descent", and I descended through the layer at maximum FPM, and landed. I did advise my destination that I was landing with ice on the wings, but had verified that the plane was stable at the intended approach speed, but I would land fast. All went well, and the ice melted off the next day.
Declaring an emergency would have had positive influence on that day, for me, at least. The controller may not have relished that outcome.
