Originally Posted by
Herod
Northern UK, winter. Leed-Bradford. Shorts 3-60. after take-off, levelled soon at what was a low altitude. Cabin windows iced up, but the noise made by the ice thrown off the props told of bad icing conditions. With a little knowledge of aerodynamics I'm thinking "aircraft will be slowing down due degraded flying capability, and stall speed will be going up, for the same reason. At some point the flying speed and the stall speed will meet. The engines were on full power, and the aircraft landed at Manchester some 20-25 minutes after departing Leeds-Bradford. While taxying in, big chunks of ice fell off the struts. Terrifying. Perhaps more so because, for my sins, I was the captain!! Alopecia Nervosa isn't funny. It makes your hair fall out.
Almost identical to my experience as a new copilot on an ATR42 - LCY- LBA. Entered rain ice at circa FL120, saw blue sky as passing FL150 and thought we’d get out on top....except we were hoodwinked, Max torque, icing speeds etc yet we were decelerating in level flight - remember looking across at my tough Yorkshire Captain and thinking he was quiet and looked a lot paler than normal - that’s when I started getting a tad nervous given the ATR’s rep in icing. We promptly descended (I think under a pan call) and found air clear of icing at FL80, outside controlled airspace.
On landing at Leeds where the temp was about 8c, big lumps of ice were dropping off the tail plane onto the ramp, that really bought it home to me how quickly icing can catch you out in a turboprop.