But back in the day ....
I remember picking up ice in cloud in my Maule in the hold over the Ottawa VOR during my initial IFR flight test in 1992. I was under the hood, and the old school Transport Canada Inspector in the right seat was unconcerned. Doug Zahody. A lot of people had a lot of hate for and fear of Doug, but we got along fine. Unlike any other pilot, Doug actually read the regulations, and was astounded to learn that I did, too.
The Maule has lots of power and will carry a good load of ice. Back in the 1970’s I remember my father landed it in Kingston with inches of ice on it. It sat on the ramp all day after that, the ice melting and chunks of ice slowly melting and falling to the ground. Wish I had a picture.
After what Dad did in the Air Force, flying a little airplane was kind of like putting a retired F1 driver in a go-kart. That’s actually not a bad idea. Could we have the Stig race retired F1 drivers in go-karts? I would watch that.
Pro Tip: newbies freak out when they get a quarter inch of ice on the windshield. That’s the least of your problems. You can fly and land just fine with no forward visibility. Every biplane pilot does it, every flight.
You may recall a guy who flew solo non-stop across the Atlantic almost 100 years ago, with no forward visibility. Read his autobiography. His philosophy about flying the mail is interesting.
Pro Tip 2: keep the speed up in icing. Colgan 3407 was uninterested in this advice. A T-33 has the same equipment as your 172 - a heated pitot - but requires none. Just keep the speed up over 300 knots during approach and the leading edge temp rise stops the ice from forming
Pro Tip 3: know your weather. An old friend of mine - Dennis Pharoah - got into terrible regulatory trouble one day. He’s been dead for many years now - suicide - but what a pilot!
Took off IFR in a buck fifty one day into a winter warm front, which if you are unfamiliar, is death in a little airplane. A buck fifty is not much of an airplane even VFR but Dennis climbed up into the warm air aloft and was on his way.
Shortly afterwards, an MU-2 had to declare an emergency because of severe icing during an approach to the same airport in the freezing rain in the wedge of cold air underneath the warm moist air aloft.
Transport was pissed and charged Dennis with flying a 150 in known icing, careless and reckless, jaywalking, double parking and unreturned library books, unpaid parking tickets. You know, everything.
So Dennis shows up in court and explains to the judge that water can’t freeze in warm air, where he was, so that can't be known as icing. Judge agrees, all charges tossed. Transport was livid.
Dennis was a great guy and a better pilot. Always smiling and happy. I remember when he got fired from the Ottawa Flying Club as an instructor. Landed their Beech Duchess late one night, tied it down and went home. There was hell to pay the next day when the line guy filled up the tanks with precisely the usable fuel.
Don’t get me wrong - I love airplanes, I love them more than is rational to do so - but people are what make aviation so special. You could live a lot of lifetimes and not meet someone as talented, fearless and charming as Dennis. In wartime he would have been a General.
