16 January 1987

Return of the ice monster

January 15-16, 1987

My pastor Nolan Phillips needed to go to a meeting in Nashville that afternoon. The plan was to fly him to his meeting, and return that night in a Piper Arrow. The meeting
went longer than he had planned, and it was becoming dark. Plus the weather had deteriorated to the point that there was a significant threat of icing. We elected to spend the night in Nashville.

The following day the cloud tops were supposed to be 4,000 feet. We cruised above the clouds for an hour. In the Louisville area the cloud tops began to rise and I was unable to stay out of them. We began to accumulate ice at a moderate rate. The surface temperature was about 32o. I had no choice but to land as quickly as possible in Louisville.

By the time we landed we had no significant propeller or windshield ice. But there was a quarter inch on the leading edges of the wings. I borrowed an ice scraper from flight service personnel, and knocked the ice off. I was able to fly underneath the clouds to Middletown without incident.

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