So let me ask a question that probably will sound stupid: what GA aircraft can I fly in the winter?

Clearly I'm not a RW pilot, because it never occurred to me that I could not fly my beloved C172 in the winter without the whole windshield becoming a sheet of ice when I am going through clouds. And that's a big issue for me, because my home base is Montreal! Yesterday I got all excited when I noticed that the Bonanza had a de-icing system, only to cry in despair when I realized mid-flight that it was not operational in MSFS.

So yeah, besides the TBM, what smaller aircraft do you fly when it's freezing outside???

I've flown the SR22 in freezing conditions and it's handled it pretty well.  

Hmm..have you tried the TBM?  

2 hours ago, Turpentine said:

So let me ask a question that probably will sound stupid: what GA aircraft can I fly in the winter?

Clearly I'm not a RW pilot, because it never occurred to me that I could not fly my beloved C172 in the winter without the whole windshield becoming a sheet of ice when I am going through clouds. And that's a big issue for me, because my home base is Montreal! Yesterday I got all excited when I noticed that the Bonanza had a de-icing system, only to cry in despair when I realized mid-flight that it was not operational in MSFS.

So yeah, besides the TBM, what smaller aircraft do you fly when it's freezing outside???

All of them. If you are concerned about icing stay out of the clouds and visibile precipitation 🙂

In the RW the turbo props primarily shine in arctic operations...

47 minutes ago, Flyfaster_MTN002 said:

All of them. If you are concerned about icing stay out of the clouds and visibile precipitation 🙂

+1  The 172 is not equipped to fly in such conditions.  A couple of the default general aviation light aircraft that have deicing features are the Diamond DA62 and the Beech G58 Baron.

The Baron is "FIKI" (Flight into known icing). Its really just an "oh sh*t, I need to get out of jail for free card" feature. Don't stay in it long. It has boots, prop heat, windshield hot plate, stall and pitot deice so you're "covered".

The Grand Caravan EX is great in cold climates...

“Caravans are approved for flight into known icing when equipped with the TKS ice-protection system. The TKS tank holds 20 gallons and provides 3.5 hours of normal anti-icing operation or 45 minutes at the high-flow setting. The propeller has its own TKS slinger ring, which helps protect the nose of the airplane. The windshield also is protected with a TKS spray bar. The TKS system is much cleaner looking than the deicer boot system found on earlier Caravans, which had boots mounted on almost every forward-facing surface.”

Here’s a great article on Bering Air (Arctic/Alaska) and their use of the Grand Caravan... https://txtav.com/en/journey/articles/case-study/turboprops-keep-arctic-communities-on-the-move

Edited December 11, 20205 yr by Virtual-Chris

Thanks everyone, I'll look into your suggestions... and stay out of the clouds as much as possible 😉

9 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

The Grand Caravan EX is great in cold climates...

“Caravans are approved for flight into known icing when equipped with the TKS ice-protection system. The TKS tank holds 20 gallons and provides 3.5 hours of normal anti-icing operation or 45 minutes at the high-flow setting. The propeller has its own TKS slinger ring, which helps protect the nose of the airplane. The windshield also is protected with a TKS spray bar. The TKS system is much cleaner looking than the deicer boot system found on earlier Caravans, which had boots mounted on almost every forward-facing surface.”

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the de-icing system is inop in the MSFS C208 (same as in the Bonanza). Given these limitations, I wish that at least that we were given option to set icing effects to "off" so that the windshield does to just freeze over. RIght now the only options are "on" or "visual only".

The de icing options are operable in the the C208.  I think the switch for windshield is backwards, if I remember correctly.

You can fly anything in Winter - as we do at my little airstrip - bright, sunny but cold days are things that light aircraft and their engines love; all that dense cool air to feed hungry engine air filters and generate lift over the surfaces. Remember; Hot 'N High is the danger zone.

 Just stay out of the clouds and remember your carb heat if conditions warrant.

Having said that - I don't know if Carb Icing is even modelled in MSFS. Probably not so don't worry.

Edited December 11, 20205 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

There are Asobo and freeware Bushtrips for arctic flying.... like

https://flightsim.to/file/3702/alaska-bush-trip

Strictly speaking, there's nothing you cannot actually fly in winter, it's more a case of being sensible about it. In the past, I have cleared snow from a blocked hangar door, pulled a glider out, towed it to the flight line and flown it, but admittedly that was snow which had fallen during the previous night and in the daytime it was clear blue skies with crisp sunlight with a forecast that it would be fairly warm that day. The temperature at the time was well above freezing, and being cloudless, there wasn't much moisture in the air to actually be the catalyst for icing, plus a decent breeze allowed some ridge soaring to be done, so it was perfectly fine to do it having studied a weather briefing properly. One thing to be aware of on that occasion however, was that obviously the landing rollout was going to be longer on a snowy grass airfield, but other than that, it was perfectly normal to fly the thing.

Obviously with flying though, you need to be aware of the prevailing conditions and potential deterioration of the conditions too, and use good judgement, particularly on an aeroplane with no anti-icing/de-icing capabilities. If I dragged something out of the hangar and canopy started icing up, it would be indicative of there being moisture in the air and of temperatures low enough to start icing that moisture up, so if that were the case, it'd be time to put the thing back in the hangar and have a beer instead.

It's worth noting too that with powered aeroplanes, it actually doesn't need to be anywhere near freezing temperatures, nor do you need to be in clouds for the wings to ice up, if the fuel in the wings gets really cold, it can make the wing surfaces so cold that moisture in the air will freeze upon contact with the wing surface, and this can be hard to see, especially on a high-winged Cessna. And there really does not need to be a lot of ice on a wing to badly affect its aerodynamics. This is exactly the reason why you sometimes see aeroplanes being de-iced at airports when it is nowhere near freezing ambient temperatures; it is because there is a risk of the fuel doing that. I don't think many flight sims simulate that level of realism, but there is nothing to stop you from pretending this is the case and simulating your own good judgement of such things for you sim flying. Aeroplane fuel in the wing tanks can get down as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit and still work okay, but that's going to instantly freeze any moisture which comes into contact with the wing, so if your plane was out in the cold all night and you turn up first thing in the morning and think there's no chance of icing, this could be a really bad mistake to make.

This is why on occasion, it is worth paying attention to what the dew point is reported as on an ATIS briefing and also have a look at what the temperature was a few hours before as well. A fun thing to note with that, is that if you check that sort of thing regularly and get used to the reported dew point and temperature and what it does to the weather where you are, you can get a good feel for the altitude the cloud base is likely to be at, since the altitude at which the water vapour condenses is largely dependent upon the temperature and the dew point at the time.

All this stuff is worth knowing if you are into realism in your flight sims, because as the old saying goes: It's better to be on the ground wishing you were up there, than up there, wishing you were on the ground, and that goes for sims as well as real world flying too.

3 hours ago, Fielder said:

There are Asobo and freeware Bushtrips for arctic flying.... like

https://flightsim.to/file/3702/alaska-bush-trip

Yeah, that's my Alaska Trip but almost sure I have the weather locked and it is not snow either 🙂 Maybe a updated version in the future. But thanks for mentioning it @Fielder In the future I'll update it where the user can select their weather, and some other small changes!

Edited December 12, 20205 yr by in2tech

In my early flight years (early 1970's) I probably did half my flying in the winter out of a turf field in northern Illinois. Not only did we have to deal with snow and ice on the airframe but also snow on the runway - there might be several inches of snow on the turf on some days. The runway was about 2500'.

It really didn't affect our flying that much. There were times we had to broom all of the snow off off the wings before a flight, but if the sun was shining or there was moderate to high cloud cover we were good to go.  Of course, we stayed out of the clouds and didn't fly under adverse conditions.  I probably didn't exceed 6000' on cross-country.

Flying in winter can be fun.  Once you get warm (pre-flight can be a word not allowed), you get a surge of power with the denser air and the flight is much smoother.