#7036 continued ... By the way, Danny, the Arrow u/c literally whistles, I think it's propwash flowing along the hinges of the nosewheel doors
“Birmingham Golf Echo Lima cannot maintain height due severe icing require immediate descent”. The controller was back in an instant: “Echo Lima, you are cleared descend to 2000ft on your present heading, report when level. Your position 15 mls north-west of the field.”
I reduced power to 18 inches and the terrific vibration reduced as I let down, making minimal control movements and carefully holding a constant attitude on the instruments. I felt the Arrow was far from happy and the last thing I wanted was to provoke a stall or spin. Suddenly the warning horn blared and the yellow 'Gear in transit' light illuminated as the undercarriage lowered itself.
The earlier Arrows have a second 'pitot head' on the side of the fuselage which senses low airspeed and lowers the gear to prevent wheels-up landings. This sensor is heated like the airspeed pitot under the wing, but obviously not heated enough as it had iced up and given a low speed signal. So the Arrow thought I was going to land and helpfully decided to lower the gear for me. The extra drag from the wheels and open wheel wells sent the variometer to its bottom stop and we fell out of the cloud in seconds even though I grabbed the manual override to retract the gear again.
I wasn't worried, I was terrified, but as we descended into warmer air the ice disappeared as quickly as it had formed. The shaking stopped, the gear stayed up, and the Lycoming resumed its steady purr as I levelled at 2000ft and began to breathe more easily. Until a piece of propellor flew back and hit the upper windscreen with a terrific bang. When my heart resumed beating I realised it had been a chunk of ice from somewhere on the nose, and luckily the perspex was intact.
Approach and landing went perfectly but I was very glad to be back on the ground, very glad to find my Arrow none the worse apart from a dent from the ice hitting the cabin roof, and very glad to receive a CAVOK forecast for my flight home into a glorious sunset. Before leaving that afternoon the preflight revealed a chunk of ice still inside the air intake, a sobering reminder of the morning's frightening journey.
I flew many hours after this experience, but never again did I risk en-route icing even when there was warmer air beneath. In fact the only time I have approached ice is when it's in a glass. With gin and tonic.