xkuzme1

Avanti

I salute you. You have got way bigger baIIs than I do. I have been in some really bad ice in a 172. They dont do as well as you think. When you start to accumulate ice it will continuously happen at an accelerated rate (and that is the wings) The prop ice is the scary part. When you look at the wings and there is ice, then you look at your windscreen and it is not really bad, it gives you a false security. Then comes a shutter from the engine as ONE prop slings the ice off, but you still have ice on the other one. You are going to thinK that you lost the engine. Then there is the ice that will build up on the spinner. It will build out like a big plate. You will loose 10-15 kts. Then when/if it lets loose hopefully it sneaks through the prop. That 40 pound piece of ice hitting the prop aint gonna do your engine any good.

The wings will be one of the last things to truly ice up and quit. The almost symmetrical rudder and elevator are sure to ice up first.

When you had the little formula for your 1/2 in of ice and the white arc. Well all those v-speed are based on Gross TOW not GTOW+30%.

If your gonna do it, then fine that is your decision. Like someone said before, you better go do some test runs in it before. Go find some ice and see how it does.

Best of luck.

X

UAL T38 Phlyer

Avanti:

Corect me if I'm wrong:

1. You've never flown in ice.

2. You've never been out of gliding range of land.

3. You've never flown solid IMC for 4 hours, fighting the leans where you were convinced you were at 135 degrees of bank--but forced yourself to believe the ADI.

4. You've never been aloft longer than your normal sleep cycle, and you are hoping granola bars will keep you awake.

5. You've never encountered winds stronger than the cruise speed of your aircraft.

6. You've never flown internationally.

7. This airplane will probably only have one ADI--no back-up.

8. You've never thought about how a high-winged, fixed-gear airplane ditches.

9. You won't have a parachute to counter #8 above.

10. You haven't thought about how, once reaching Europe, you will route yourself through Russia, Kyrgistan, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan to reach India.

11. You haven't thought about what kind of reception you would receive in those countries if you had to make an un-planned stop. They're not too keen on women drivers--let alone a pilot.

This is insanity. Don't do it.

I don't want to read about you as a statistic. Adventure is great--so is a dream or goal. Don't let the ferry company con you into something that is beyond your capability. I've been flying longer than you've been alive, and I'm a calculated risk-taker...and I wouldn't do this.

Bloodhound

Let me start by saying that I don't have any ocean crossing experience. I have been YYT (St. Johns) in the winter and it's not always fun. Cat II ILS in FZFG is common and the places along the northern route you've suggested I would imagine are worse. I personally wouldn't consider the southern route because I wouldn't want to be that far away from land for that long and I wouldn't think that it would be warm enough to eliminate the possibilty of ice - but I don't know.

I flew with a guy who flew westbound over the North Atlantic in October. He said they climbed out of Scotland and encountered ice so they tried to climb out of and couldn't. So what do they decide to do? Descend out of it and cross at 500'. Sounds crazy to me but I believe the guy. He was on the northern route. Another thing he mentioned was Greenland shuts down on the weekend so plan on staying there a few days until the airport and fueled reopens.

Also, ice is nasty. I wouldn't want to know what an acceptable level of ice is on a non-ice aircraft. You can't predict ice severity - it can change instantly. Ice has brought down ice certified transport category aircraft. Comair lost a Brazilia to ice, Eagle lost an ATR... If there's something I wouldn't screw with, it's ice on a non- ice aircraft.

Take or leave my input - that's up to you. 7000TT with 6200 in transport category and I'm probably on the low side of experience in the Majors forum.

757upspilot

You have gotten a good deal of good advice.

I have flown
1. In Alaska in aircraft that are de ice equiped
2. The North Atlantic and North Pacific in Jets
3. South and Central America

You sound like a nice person. Don't do this.

FlyJSH

I have no experience with a trip of this magnitude... but I think the best reason NOT to fly this trip is that nobody else has taken it. If it weren't foolish, one of the oldtimers would be doing it him/herself.


If you do take the trip, what is the policy if half way through you decide, "This is crazy, I quit!"?



Godspeed

Bloodhound

I also think that the other issue, which has been briefly mentioned, is the Middle East and women. I think this is just as big as the wx hazards. They have millenia of anti-female thinking. My cousin (female) lived in Syria an Egypt for several years and even though Egypt is better than Syria, it can still be rough. She was driving one day and a mob surrounded her car, beating on the car. Someone saw the diplomat license plates (her husband's job), broke her window and pulled her to safety.

... Another thing to consider.

navigatro

Hi!

I have a job offer to drive a moped from Bagdad to Tehran, while wearing a Star of David t-shirt.

I got my moped license last month, so I am pretty experienced.

Can you please give me some advice on what to expect?

Thanks and Happy Hanukkah!

Danzig

Avanti:

Hitherto, your career has been spent learning about good Pilot Judgment, and then teaching it. This most certainly is not good Pilot Judgment. As UAL T38 Phlyer outlined above, not only is this trip beyond your capabilities and experiences, but it is beyond your aircraft's abilities! In the end, what this results in, is shear madness.

A definition of "shear madness" is this: You - a pilot with no comparable experience, on any level besides basic flying, are considering taking a Cessna 172 SP - a four place, high drag (more surfaces to ice over: struts, gear, etc), 180 horsepower, six cylinder, single-engine, training, aircraft, into some of the most severe weather systems that can be found over the Atlantic Ocean, this time of year.

As an MEI, I would expect that you know the value of redundancy, and as a CFII, I expect you would have a healthy respect for your personal limits, and the limits of your aircraft.

One of the most valuable resources that we, as inexperienced pilots, have, is that experience and wisdom of those pilots much more experienced than ourselves. Avanti, you have several pages of experienced pilots urging you to not be so careless with your life.

I can tell you about my experiences with icing on both rated and not-rated aircrafts, extreme IFR (for that is what you will encounter), and overall sticky situations and poor weather; but it won't be any different that what will have already heard. Ice is probably the number one scariest situation I have ever encountered. I hope your client does not require the aircraft to have paint, because a trip this time of year, along that route, will quite probably result in ice stripping the paint off the leading edges; not to mention the overall damage to the leading edges, propeller, spinner, engine, cowling, fairings, and wheel pants.

As a CFII, I expect you would know about how fatiguing even just a two hour flight in rough Actual can be; and now you're talking about flights in such conditions, in excess of four hours, without an autopilot! My goodness woman, do you like cheating death, or is this your first attempt?

As if the weather over the North Atlantic (which, may I call to mind, closes down some naval shipping routes) is not enough, now you're talking about International Airspace - a whole other beast, with whom you don't have experience. Have you ever met an Icelandic National? Their accent is extremely hard to understand, until you develop an ear for it. Now consider that you'll be flying through: Portuguese, Aramaic, and Hindi speaking airspaces. To the naive pilot, this does not seem like an obstacle; with English being the language of Aviation. Well, I'm not sure about the Azores, but I know that French controllers have a perpetency to control in a variety of languages, not limited to: English, French, Dutch, German, Flemish, Spanish, and Italian; making listening on the radio very user-intensive and stressful. (For you frequenters of CDG, this isn't usually the case; I have only experienced it during flights in other than terminal areas.) Not to mention that the accents you will hear, will only be magnified by radio transmission, making communication all the more difficult.

Now its really piling up; but wait, there's more! Supposing you get through the Atlantic, now you'll be faced with some of the most volatile and dangerous airspaces in the world: Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, etc. Considering our current Wars, most of these are best avoided; not to mention Military Flight Restriction Zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lastly, you have Indian airspace. Not too sure about lately, but Indian airspace used to be the dread of every pilot, because "Controllers" couldn't control worth crap.

In the end, what it boils down to is: what is the worth of your life? I know for a fact, that most training airplanes that have been shipped to that part of the world recentally, have been just that: shipped, via cargo container.

RU4692

Try "waxing" the wings with floor polish before you take off, and at every stop. It will help delay the ice sticking to the wings for a little while. I've talked to some Flight Express guys who have used that method before. I'd also consider covering the windscreen, prop, landing gear struts, empennage and cowl to help avoid the icing. Pretty much cover the entire aircraft.

I'm not condoning what you are doing. This sounds like insanity to me, but if you insist on doing this I would go with plan "B" and take every precaution before flight.

Is it really worth the consequences?

captscott26

I urge you to stop and think about what you are about to do.....you are heading down a VERY slippery slope here, and I would hate so see something bad happen. Sometimes we as pilots are so mission oriented that we fail to take a step back and really think about the most important things!

Be careful!!!!!