hello witchdoctor,
had a similar experience with a fokker 28 one day, long ago in lisbon during late springtime. oat+ 20°c, light winds, but overcast, unlike your story where it was a sunny day. landed with cold soaked wings after a 2hr30min flight at high altitudes. after refuelling & after the transit walk-around, it started to rain/drizzle slightly. well, within minutes the leading edges & underside of the wings were covered with icy river patches from the dripping precipitation. when i asked for deicing, the rampagent totally caught by surprise, answered:" no sir, not at this time of the year". so i showed him the leading edges. i don't remember the portugese traduction of "my gosh", or something alike. all we could do was to delay the return flight till the ice was melted. i still thank the lord for some kind of 6th sense that made me go out & check the wings when it started to rain.
and last but not least, witchdoctor, the fact that this captain was the only person asking for deicing that day, is in itself no argument whatsoever in either direction. as captain of your aircraft you have to decide the next course of action & not fall in the trap of being a follower of others. this does not mean that you must not look for what's happening around you, eg, on a dark & murky winternight i saw the opposite: several planes were deicing, i asked my f/o who did the walk-around if he noticed something abnormal on the wings concerning ice contamination? he replied by:"no, didn't notice anything wrong". again the 6th sense made me doublecheck & indeed nothing was visible in the dark, even with the torchlight, but by tactile feeling it was a complete different story: clear ice from the best quality, a few mm thick. never was so quick to ask for de-icing.
Last edited by blackmail; 9th December 2004 at 08:41.