Editor’s Log: 01/06

Talking About Ice
Winter will be upon us in North America by the time this issue arrives in your mailbox. Already, my flight planning concerns have shifted from worrying about thunderstorms over the Great Plains to worrying about ice over the Appalachians.

Much of the talk among pilots and in this magazine about ice focuses on avoiding it or coping with it if you can’t avoid picking up a load. There’s also the legal issue of flying an unapproved aircraft in known or forecast icing conditions.

That doesn’t mean we should keep the airplane in the shed all winter; nor does it mean flying into ice with impugnity. Indeed, most of the ice I’ve found over the years wasn’t where...