Well, I got home. It wasn’t easy.
I called for a weather briefing, and the Canadian side of the border was forecasting only nil-light clear ice, while the US side between Watertown and Syracuse was still calling for light to moderate mixed icing in clouds and precipitation between freezing level and 18,000 feet. I also found out that the clouds to the west and north of Ottawa were in several layers, while those to the south were still solid from about 1500 feet up to above the highest altitude I could reach. I hemmed and hawed, and decided to try the northern route, going from Ottawa to Campbellford (spelling approximate – designator YCF) to Toronto to the little maze of Victor Airways that get you from Toronto to Rochester. It looked like it was going to be pure VFR after about YCF.
At first, I couldn’t start the plane. The very helpful guy at Esso Avitat brought out this humungous pre-heater that is made for jet aircraft but he says they mostly use it for getting the trucks going in very cold weather. 10 or 15 minutes of that, and the engine kicked over in one blade. What a difference a little warmth can make.
I took off, and immediately I was having even more of the electrical problems I’d reported on the way out. The autopilot’s indicator lights (that say “HDG”, “NAV”, etc) were all flashing like crazy. As well, that pinging that was coming through the intercom was a full fledged squeal, so I turned off the intercom. One of the radio flip-flops wouldn’t retune – it was set to 132.20 (Montreal Center) and I was attempting to turn the other Montreal Center frequency at 132.05, but it only flicked between 132.20 and 132.15 and wouldn’t budge. But I moved the outer knob to 131, and then I could tune the inner ring to .05, and then move the outer knob to 132. Weird. Toronto Center was having a lot of problems with my transponder, too, asking me to recycle once, then ident, then report various distances from them. As I got closer that cleared up, no idea if it was something wrong with the transponder or just that I was closer to their antenna. The alternator was nearly pegged, and I recycled it once, and it seemed to help some of the problems, but the autopilot never worked at all, and the squeal in the intercom went down to a ping but never went away.
When I entered the clouds on the way up, I went to a fast cruise climb speed, 100 knots or more, because clear ice can build up on the underside of the wing unseen if you have a high angle of attack. By the time I reached my cruise altitude, 8000, I was in a layer where the clouds were widely scattered at my altitude, so I was in and out of them, but I couldn’t see below or above so I was on the guages the whole time. I really really need more practice flying on the guages without an autopilot. On the way up to my altitude I picked up a thin layer of clear ice, about 2-4 mm in depth I’d guess, on the temperature probe, and what looked more a very thin layer of impacted snow on the wings. I couldn’t detect any difference in flying qualities, and I was still making better than 130 knots over the ground so it wasn’t slowing me down any. Because I was in and out of and then totally above the clouds, I wasn’t picking up any more.
By the time I got to YCF, it was severe clear. I’ve never seen the drumlins in that part of the world from the air before. It was quite startling how clear they were. Toronto Center asked me to descend to 4000 feet, which got me below the freezing level and the ice went pretty quickly. They were quite accomodating about my desire not to cross the middle of the lake direct from YCF to Rochester, and bring me in almost to the edge of the Toronto Class C airspace and letting me climb back up to 7000 feet before sending me over. Not only is the lake narrower there than back at Rochester, I believe the rescue helicopter is based at Toronto City Center so any rescue would reach me quicker there. The funny thing about them getting me what I wanted was that I was heading due West with Buffalo directly to my left (South), and he gave me a climbing right turn to 090 (due East), which I thought was kind of weird. But before I completed the turn or got to 7000 feet he had me continue the turn to 190 (just past South), and then I saw a commuter plane go by straight in front of me at about 5000 feet, descending to land at Toronto. So it was just a clever way of making sure I was higher than the commuter plane before I turned to cross his path.
It was a mixture of frustration and fun, and I’m glad to be home.