Originally Posted by
RVF750
NNUTS. In anything other than a High Speed Jet Transport (or pehaps VERY high performance Turboprop), out climbing ice is a fool's decision. Always was and always will be.
Originally Posted by
TangoAlphad
Agreed. It is one thing continuing a climb through icing etc but if you are picking up ice to the degree of being performance limiting unless you can already see patches of blue you probably aren't going to get through it.
Although most of my turborop experience was not in the area where I live, the area where I live is a well-known location for severe icing conditions in freezing rain.
A retired test pilot that I know did Twin Otter in flight icing tests. His advice was that the worst of the icing was actually in quite narrow bands several thousand feet thick.
Of course, each situation is different but in a situation where one cannot descend to air warm enough to melt ice or clear of both cloud and icing(ie no freezing rain), I would consider climbing first. In the case of a warm front, you may get to warmer air.
With regard to climb/descend options......When in icing conditions, you will always have the capability to descend but the climb option may no longer exist if you chose the descend option first.
At night, you will never see blue patches and if there is a higher cloud layer, you won't see blue in the day either.
As I said, this is not based on significant personal experience in such conditions and I'm sure others could give theirs based on more personal experience.