Cruise climb is exactly right. There are many times that you will encounter very light icing in the clouds that is not expected. This is not necessarily dangerous if you know what to do at those times. Freezing up is not the thing to do! This also illustrates one of the other problems that I have with the wonder schools, as well as many flight instructors...they have a tendency to train pilots as monkeys, instead of forcing them to think outside of the box. Flaps down at this point, speed "x" at this point, gear down at this time, any amount of ice equals death, etc. The problem with this is that it does not take into account the fact that the perfect scenario rarely presents itself in the aviation world, and there comes a time when you need to keep your speed up on final for following traffic, or make a short approach, and the like.

I remember flying with a person once who questioned me for putting the gear down before the flaps when approaching an airport visually and asked to keep the speed up until 5 mile final. It completely blew his mind when I explained to him that the gear can be extended at a higher speed which will allow you to slow down for the proper flap speed. I also had to explain why I didn't request the approach flap setting at the published max speed for the setting. (this was a seperate incident) He seemed very surprised that aircraft configuration changes at the maximum allowable speed can be very uncomfortable for the pax as well as completely unnecessary. This type of knowledge comes from experience.

Please don't get me wrong, I too attended one of these wonder schools pre 9-11, but my first paying pilot job after that was sightseeing. Heavy, hot and high made me really look back and think about the way that I was taught. Having to learn to improvise in order to make an airplane fly was not the best idea with paying passengers in the back and no other pilot in the plane. It worked out but I can't say it was the safest thing to do, and that was only six passengers in a C-207!

What I have learned looking back is that most people can be taught to fly a fancy big airplane, but it takes experience to actaually operate it correctly in the environment. It is great to be able to learn from the guy in the left seat, but keep in mind, you are both there to do a job, and his isn't to be a flight instructor.