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Old 2nd November 2006 | 16:56
  #16 (permalink)  
IO540
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From: EuroGA.org
My experience of significant rapid airframe icing has mainly been crossing cold fronts where there has been significant precipitation. Warm and occluded fronts tend to be more gentle in terms of the turbulence, precipitation intensity and rate of ice accretion.

For this reason, I (TKS prop only) tend to avoid flying through any front unless I can be sure there won't be any "organised" IMC with tops anywhere near the operating ceiling (say 18k) so avoidance of any vertical nasties can be done visually. Otherwise, I would turn back. This strategy has so far worked for me 100%, although I have scrapped a few flights this summer - but on those flights one would have been in solid IMC, in very moist tops and probably severe icing, anywhere below 25k feet and that rules out even a lot of turboprops.

For inflight weather radar, look at

http://www.moving-terrain.de/en/index_en.htm

A very high entry cost, over £5000 I recall, followed by about £100/year, but their charging structure is complex and you need to phone them to not only get pricing but also to work out what you actually get...

We are never likely to see the US-style weather radar data.
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