Ice, the Face of God and Illusions: Air Facts Journal

I live in Fargo, North Dakota, where winter lasts from six to thirteen months of the year. (Here we use a “Frozorian calendar” which has an extra month.)

When I first moved back to Fargo after living elsewhere for a while—as Fargoans call it, “living abroad”—I asked the manager of the Fargo airport how much it would cost per month to tie my plane down on the ramp. He looked at me across his desk as if I had asked him, “How long does it take to drive from my side of this desk where I’m sitting to your side of the desk?” but he politely replied in the Fargo way of saying, “Well, that would be free. But nobody does that.”

So it’s cold here, I say. That explains the ice that quickly formed on my wings as I foolishly flew through the clouds at 8,000 feet on April 29. I was flying an IFR flight plan out of Flying Cloud Airport, KFCM (motto: “Wrong Runway Landings RUS”). Oh, you’re laughing, but just go fly there sometime. Or better yet, don’t.

I was flying at 14,000 feet toward Fargo on an IFR flight plan, feeling stupid and happy. Filing and flying IFR is SO much easier than flying VFR, I thought. But it wasn’t.

Flying at 14,000 feet towards Fargo on an IFR flight plan, stupid and happy.

Minneapolis Center said, “Lancair 214DK, descend and stay at 8,000 feet.” I thought, “I have to do that because he told me to,” and I did. Turns out I shunta. Shunta, shunta, shunta. I entered the clouds at about 9,000 feet and immediately ice started forming on the wings. I didn’t see the ice on the wings at first because I was busy looking for ice on the windshield. But there was no ice. Finally, when I looked to my left and then to my right, I saw ice on my wings from the wingtip to the wing root. Ouch! All white, the edges, and it kept getting whiter.

Suddenly I was William Shatner in the Twilight Zone (heavy on the “shat”) turning to my buddy in the right seat and saying, “Look — at that stuff — on the wings.” He’s not a pilot, so he didn’t panic as easily as I did. See, the Lancair has a thin, laminar flow wing, and if it gets ice on it, well, goodbye “lifties.” Ice is bad for my little wings, I was told in training, and I thought, “Whoa, I’ll never get into icing conditions. Not me!”

I turned on the microphone and said in what I hoped was a cool pilot’s voice, “Minneapolis Center, this is Lancair 214DK. I am seeing icing, building rapidly, requesting an evasive vector.” ATC said, “Do you want a vector?” I said, “Yes, I want an immediate left turn to avoid the icing, 4DK.”

ATC: “Lancair 214DK, you are cleared to maneuver to avoid the ice. What altitude do you want?” All this while I was in a 45 degree turn and doing a 180, looking out of the cockpit at my white wings. I said, “Stay at one.” Then I looked up and saw a blue hole in the clouds – blue sky! I think I even saw the face of God. I said, “4DK, request 12,000 feet. I want to break the strict bands of icing.” No, I didn’t say all that.

Downtown Minneapolis snapped me out of my near-panic, which I think is a lot like Real panic. They said in a clear, slow voice, “214DK, you want climb to avoid the frosting?” Well, that took me out of it. I said, “Center, thanks for asking — request lower, Lancair 214DK. I’m going to touch God’s face later.” (Maybe I’m glossing over it.)

ATC: “4DK, you are free to maneuver to avoid all those icebergs floating around in the North Sea, descend and maintain 5,000 meters, proceed directly to Fargo if possible. Good luck.”

I dive to 5,000 feet like a P51 chasing a Messerschidt, board out, and hey! — I see ground! Clear air below and around me! Fergus Falls Municipal Airport has never looked better. In fact, I’d never seen it before, but still. The Minnesota State Mental Hospital used to be in Fergus Falls, I thought subconsciously, thinking how insane it was that I was dropping out of blue sky into clouds of ice, with no traffic within a hundred miles of me — just because some guy told me to.

The good news about this little ice scare is that I “went by the instruments, believed the instruments” when I did all that tugging and banking in the clouds. Eventually. I really tried to get off that ice, but didn’t panic and didn’t fly by “feel” which can kill a pilot sometimes. These were towering cululous clouds with little pockets of clear air here and there, so I went from inside to outside the clouds at about 9,000 feet.

I could hear the voice of my US Air Force instructor pilot saying, “GO BY THE INSTRUMENTS, BELIEVE THE INSTRUMENTS.” Well, I didn’t do that at first, one time, when I was flying in a small open space, with shaving cream all over my leading edges, trying to climb over the next cloud in front of me. All of a sudden the voice of the Garmin lady yelled, “PUT THE GEAR DOWN NOW!” I Than by god went on the instruments, saw I was 17 degrees nose up, airspeed dropping to 130 knots. Whoa Nelly.

So I recovered. In my training days in the Air Force, for some reason—I think it’s been passed down from pilot to pilot for generations—we instructor pilots would say, “REEEECOVER!” to the student after we’d put them in an unusual position and give them the controls.

Later, safely on the ground, I read an article about how there are six ways pilots get confused in the clouds, seven of which are fatal. They all stem from flying “by feel” and allowing the “tumbled gyros” or inner ear disturbances to affect a pilot’s thoughts. It’s all in the eyes. That is why the ADI is so big and in the middle of the cockpit. If you look at that, everything is healed. Here are the illusions, although I may have made some mistakes. You decide.

You have your “lean illusion,” or, in Chicago, “da leant,” an illusion that disturbs the other person next to you, with his shoulder touching and occupying the armrest and such; Solution: sit on the instruments, believe the instruments.

You have your “Coriolis illusion” where a pilot starts to believe he is in the mafia, part of the Coriolis family. Super deadly. Solution: you pull out your pilot’s license and read your name over and over. Remember: your name is not Orville or Wilbur, that’s the BACK! Focus! Go for the license, believe the license. A Discover card can also work.

You have your “graveyard spiral illusion” which is best gotten rid of by – and this has been tested by the FAA – playing the song “Monster Mash” backwards at full volume. Singing it backwards works too, but it’s best to write the words on your arm, or a friend’s arm (the LEFT one) with a black Sharpie, for example: “He did the monster mash (The monster mash) It was a graveyard smash.” That way a pilot can sing “Smash graveyard a was it” without thinking – just read it. This technique is also good for a DUI traffic stop, when an officer asks you to count backwards from 100 by twos. Remember: do NOT start by saying “Smash graveyard a was it” – use your other arm, the one with the numbers and alphabet on it backwards. Concentrate!

You have your “somatographic illusion,” which happens when you accelerate quickly. So if I somehow do a carrier catapult (a “deck catshot”) instead of a normal takeoff and go from zero to 140 KIAS in two seconds, this could very well happen, if I’m Jimmy Doolittle.

You have your ‘elevator illusion’, which can strike out of nowhere when you (me) are in a crowded elevator and you’re nervous and you (sigh… I already have) make some small talk until I get into the ‘elevator’.elevator illusion that other people listen to my chatter and not mentally put ‘foam’ in their ears or a ‘sheath’ in my back.

Finally, you have your ‘inverted illusion’, which I’ve noticed doesn’t exist when you’re inverted.

The solution to all these illusions is: “sit on the instruments and believe in the instruments.”

The solution to icing: “smell” it (visible moisture—clouds—in cold weather), avoid it. If you get into it, descend, where it is adiabatically warmer (who would have thought?). Also, in my case, I am now ready for icing and will think “lower is warmer” and “avoid clouds in winter”, which is still a bit “on” here, at altitude.

And finally, those damn illusions can be so real – so real! – that they can almost be overwhelming, so back to: USE THE TOOLS, BELIEVE THE TOOLS.

This postpones the ‘touching of the face of God’ until later.

Amen.

Matt Johnson is from Fargo, North Dakota, where hundreds of other people are from. He went to school and learned very little, but the U.S. Air Force got him in 1986, when he went to Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma (“Little Prison Camp On The Prairie”). He was in the UPT class of 87-07, graduated, then went to Beale AFB, California, and flew as a KC-135Q copilot, refueling the SR-71 on missions around the world – England, Okinawa, Japan. He also flew the T-38 in the Accelerated Copilot Enrichment (ACE) program, and his instructors were SR-71 pilots Major Brian Shul and Major Terry Pappas. He got really excited about that jet and became an Instructor Pilot (IP) in the T-38 after a short three months of school and ten short checkrides at Randolph AFB, and taught the White Rocket for a year and a half. No one called it the White Rocket, but that sounds cool and I’m a nerd. Note that no one called it the “SR-71” at Beale AFB; we all called it “the sled.” Matt taught as a CFI for a few years in Virginia, near Washington DC (bogies everywhere, like fireflies), and now flies a Lancair IVP for fun out of KFAR, Fargo, ND. He also writes, which is tough.