Marty Vanover:
A potential airplane buyer who lives in the Northwest asked me if I knew how the Sierra handles light icing. He mentioned his Mooney was pretty bad even with very light icing. I believe he said HOPELESS. He also mentioned that the Arrow did pretty good. I haven’t any Sierra or Musketeer experience and I NEVER fly in icing conditions, so I can’t comment. Has anyone encountered light ice in a Mouse, and how do the Sierras, Sundowners, Musketeers handle it?
Editor:
In my opinion, the Sierra does not have the excess power to handle much icing, though I have heard from owners who say that they picked up “a lot” and survived it. I have been in icing temporarily (and inadvertently) during flights in both the USA and Canada (in my C24R). I think that the longest episode was maybe 20 minutes in light rime, which seemed like an eternity. My first indication was always a need to add 100 RPM to maintain altitude. Then another 100 RPM within five minutes or less. And only then, after that initial warning, could you actually see rime forming on the wing leading edges, and at the base of the windshield, creeping upwards. In a couple of cases it got up to maybe ¼ inch of rime on the wing, maybe a bit more, before I could get out of it. I had to go to 2700 and 125 rich of peak to prevent an uncommanded descent, while maintaining maybe only 110 knots indicated. Also note that probably half of my airframe icing has come at indicated OATs between 32 and 35 degrees, not just when at or below 32. The thermometer checks out while on the ground, so I think it is reading correctly.
My impression is that the Sierra does as well as anything else with the same pounds-per-horsepower and wing loading, and perhaps slightly better than an equivalent strut-braced high wing… which is to say that none of the planes in this class will safely carry any measurable ice. Performance characteristics become too unpredictable, among all the other pitfalls related to icing. While you can literally keep the plane in the air with more ice on it, by running full power and a lower IAS, you don’t know what the magic IAS will be, where it drops out from under you. On top of that, you had better be prepared to land it at whatever IAS is keeping it airborne. I won’t get into all the details about tailplane icing, flap use with icing, tailplane stalls, etc. I am outlining the ice load versus IAS/power relationship only because it helps explain why someone can say that they landed with more airframe ice than someone else had reported as affecting performance.
I can’t resist saying that, when evaluating whether to buy a Sierra, how it handles icing would be near the bottom of my list. Any plane in this class should keep you alive long enough to get out of it, assuming you are doing so with bold intent. And if you are using that bold intent to ride it out instead, you will get killed doing it in something. Even the light planes that are certified for known icing, have decidedly low limits of tolerance for significant icing conditions.