AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2018 - 98

P&E

NEVER AGAIN

Dancing with the devil
Ice over the Appalachian
Mountains
BY JOE BRINCK

98 | AOPA PILOT February 2018

Immersed in self-congratulations on my excellent flying skills, I hadn't
noticed the thick ice buildup on the windshield and struts. Reality hit when
airspeed began to decay and the engine began to vibrate. The ice-coated propeller was visible through a small clear spot above the defroster vent on the
windshield; cycling the prop didn't help. The engine vibration became so violent I was forced to throttle back for fear of shaking the engine loose from the
airframe; this lessened the vibration but increased the angle of attack. As airspeed decayed, thoughts of stalling a heavily laden, now slow and underpowered
airplane in IMC suddenly sprang to mind. I made many radio calls to ATC but
to no avail. I was alone in a very bad situation over the Appalachian Mountains.
As the airplane slowed and the controls got mushier, it became clear that
the altimeter might be lying; it hadn't budged from 10,000 feet. The airspeed
indicator was stock still at the bottom of the green arc. Since the pitot heat
worked at preflight, the static ports must be iced, but there was no alternate
static source installed.
Fortunately, in my haste to depart, I had not stowed the throttle lock but had
simply laid it on the co-pilot's seat. I carefully smashed the glass cover on the
vertical speed indicator. Immediately the altimeter began to unwind fast-very
fast, like the old cartoons of crashing airplanes. It stopped spinning at 3,800 feet.
A few more desperate calls to ATC went unanswered. Climbing was impossible; just holding altitude at that low power setting was a challenge. It was then
that I heard a voice, not over the radio but rather inside my head. The voice
clearly said, You're going to die, go ahead and panic.

SARAH JONES

OCTOBER 8, 1987. I was a 31-year-old
mechanical engineer and CEO of my own
industrial equipment manufacturing company with 571 total hours and 110 in my
Cessna 210. I had flown from my base
at Cincinnati West Airport in Harrison,
Ohio, to Martin State Airport just east of
Baltimore, Maryland, to start up a process
heater at McCormick & Co.'s research
and development center. Three days later,
start-up complete and customer happy, I
was anxious to return home to my wife
and three children.
The morning dawned clear; the
weather report was for a smooth ride
but with cloud cover beginning west of
Baltimore extending to mid-Ohio, with
the possibility of ice. As was the practice
in pre-internet days, my weather briefing
was by phone with the requisite struggle,
usually only partially successfully, to piece
together a picture of the enroute weather.
I filed an IFR flight plan for 10,000 feet.
N4930U was a 1965 Cessna 210E. I loved the throaty
roar of her IO-520 engine. After a decade of fixed-gear
flying, the act of raising and lowering the landing gear
made it seem that I was finally flying a real airplane.
By today's standards, the airplane was poorly outfitted: no autopilot, no deice save the pitot tube heater, two
BendixKing KX-155 nav/coms, a vacuum horizon and
directional gyro, and not much else. But like all 210s, the
airplane was a rock-solid IFR platform, with good speed,
long legs, and huge hauling capacity, and I loved her.
As I climbed out from Martin State into what was
now a partly cloudy sky, ATC vectors soon brought me
west of Baltimore/Washington International and a clearance to the cruising altitude of 10,000 feet. Farther west
the cloud cover gathered until it was solid IFR. Then
a problem: light ice buildup on the windshield and on
the wing struts. Being inexperienced with ice, I decided
it was really of no concern and happily cruised along
concentrating on flying the Victor airways and holding altitude. What a great job I was doing, especially on
holding altitude-it didn't vary by 20 feet. In fact, it didn't
vary at all.

AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2018

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