Page 118 - Demo

116A WINTER%u2019S TALEI spent most of my formative flying years in the Lightning, which went so fast and stayed airborne for such a short time that icing was never a problem and, in the fullness of time, I was lucky enough to get an exchange tour with the Royal Canadian Air Force on the CF101 Voodoo, which had a comparable performance. At our Canadian base, we also had access to half a dozen Lockheed T-33 Shooting Stars, an American-built basic jet trainer, which we used for communications, target profile flights and similar purposes. It was in the T-33 that I learned about icing.I had flown to Toronto to attend the Exchange Officers%u2019 conference, and planned to return on the Friday evening, in time for a dinner party that my Boss was hosting. The function was due to commence at 1930, but the forecast showed freezing drizzle until 1800. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have made the decision right there and then to repair to the hotel and fly home the following morning.However, my planning showed that I would not arrive back at base until 1830, so all would be well, wouldn%u2019t it? Diversion airfields were few and far between, with most of them showing RED1 or AMBER but, undeterred, I started up and took off into a very black night.At height the weather was actually quite nice, so on I pressed, and all went well until I contacted base with 50 miles to run. Air Traffic told me that the cloud base was 200 feet (very low), with half a mile visibility (very poor) in freezing drizzle (very bad), and the one decent diversion airfield was GREEN. I should have cut my losses and diverted, but I was a steely-eyed fighter pilot who could easily cope with the conditions, and there was the Boss%u2019s dinner party to consider. Down I went through thick cloud, levelled at 1500 feet and started my radar-guided approach. All seemed well until, at about 1000 feet, I glanced up from the instruments to look for any sign of the approach lights, and realised that my windscreen was covered in ice - thick ice! The quarter-lights on each side of the windscreen were also about 90% covered, with only a small strip about an inch wide