Thanks. I appreciate it. That really was super helpful.
Question--when you mentioned you may not have to climb or descend a lot to get out of icing condition, I imagined a scenario and want to ask you about that. So, I have quite a bit of flying experience in Oregon and Washington State. The two are pretty notorious for icing due to the amount of moisture in the air and the Cascade mountain range that lifts the air and exacerbates it.
Winter temperatures are generally anywhere from 0-10 degrees celsius on the ground, which means freezing level is around 0 to 4000 feet MSL. Generally there are to escape to warmer temperature in this case, one has to descend pretty low and since it is mountainous it would be difficult to descend that low and maintain MEA or even be on minimum vectoring altitude. If you are not sure of your climb capability and have to descend to get the ice to melt off (I have heard of 3 inches of ice in a minute in a Super King Air so it gets really hardcore around here sometimes), then what would be the next step if you would end up below MEA and vectoring altitude at that point while on IFR plan. Does it mean scudrun to destination necessarily?
How about climbing? Generally in the Pacific Northwest you would encounter a couple layers but would break out in the clear if you could go high enough (I heard high enough is like 10000, have not verified) If you have to climb higher than that but found yourself collecting ice in a climb, is there a way to step climb (say climb some, shed ice between layers in the clear, then continue climbing?)
And how about freezing fog (we get that a lot in the winter) is that a go or no go and how do you judge?
Thanks for your advice. I am a newbie Freight pup, and appreciate it. Are you from the US too? If not, where do you live (and fly)?