Typhoon

One thing about flying corporate is that there is a much bigger level of expectation.  As a professional pilot flying turbine aircraft, it has to be really really bad to make the no-go decision.  Last weekend the remnants of a typhoon were battering the left coast, especially western Washington.  Low and behold up comes a trip to Washington.  In the time I've been doing this I really haven't had to face any serious weather.  Mostly it's just been the constant marine layer in Socal and the odd cloud layer, as well as windy and bumpy days.

I awoke to rain and a low overcast and was looking forward to a more challenging flight.  This flight was in the the KingAir, and of course the KingAir has all kinds of excess power to beast through this frontal, non-convective stuff.  Icing at 18k ?  No problem just pop on up to 260.

I spent nearly the whole flight in the clouds which was a big change from the last year or so where most flights have been in severe clear with only a few minutes in cloud.  I let about an 3/4 inch of ice accumulate on the boots, which you can see on the leading edge of the boot above.  Then I popped the boots and most of it flew off.

Here the windshield anti-ice was on but couldn't quite keep up.

The advantage of all that wind was some pretty nice tailwinds on the way up.  Here doing 345 kts!   All in all it was actually a pretty easy, no drama flight... but I was happy to be in a KingAir at 25,000 ft and not my Baron down at 12k !