The thing that gets me flying frontal IFR is meeting an Embedded CB in the clag. I had a flight a few months ago, and although the weather was pretty crap it was perfectly flyable, not too rough. However as we started bursting in and out of the clouds we could see these big CB's around, and we ended up back in the cloud knowing that there was embedded thunderstorms in there, listening to people"deviating for weather". We didn't meet one luckily, though it did start getting very dark at one point (so we aimed for the light bit
). It is a nice feeling when you burst out of the back of the front into sunshine....Regarding Icing, if there is a possibility of icing, you don't go unless your aircraft is equipped.
Ideally I would like a weather radar and de-icing equipment, and preferbly a spare engine
, but there is nothing stopping safe SE IFR in a suitably equipped aircraft. It is important to have a plan in case the engine quits though, if I am near water and the minimums are low, I'll head for that using moving map GPS if nescessary.
The things which would stop me are known thunderstorms and icing level too low (which in the winter in the UK it invariably is), then it depends on arrival airport weather.
Cheers
EA