I was having the ground school portion of a Flight Review with a pilot the other night and the subject of airframe icing came up. The student said that they were terrified of flying in icing conditions. I told them that they should be!
The first thing that I asked was "what criteria do you use when determining whether to make a flight or not when it is winter time." The answer was a 45 degree ground temperature, and that they wouldn't fly higher than 4000 ft.
I would say that is an acceptable first step and should keep you safe, but a deeper analysis into the current weather conditions would be in order. The name of the game is "options". How thick is the cloud layer? Where is the freezing level? What kind of aircraft are you flying and does it have ice protection of any sort? Where are the bases relative to MEA?
The regulations say that we aren't allowed to fly in "known icing conditions." What this basically means to me is that if there are clouds, or precipitation, and the temperature at that altitude is less than freezing - That would be known icing - I GUESS?!?! I think the regulations are a little ambiguous so that it gives some wiggle room.
Bottom Line - if you don't have any anti-ice / de-ice equipment on your airplane, its best to be conservative. Take the car if you have to go that bad.
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