I started this post on February 11th after a great day of flying and learning.  I did not publish it and then learned about flight 3407 in Buffalo the following day.  My heart goes out to all of those affected and there is so much to learn from that tragedy … let’s not allow all those victims to be lost in vain. 

Here is what I wrote just 5 days ago ….

Today was another day of learning and improving.  My plan was to go to the airport and work on my short field landings again.  The weather was significantly different than yesterday, which was clear blue skies visibility unlimited and a bit of a wind.  But absolutely gorgeous.  Well today it was overcast with a front moving in with warm air colliding with cold.  We decided to stay at Hanscom Field, Beford Massachusetts initially, but after run-up we thought it would be a good idea to go somewhere else to make sure we were getting a variety of visuals.  It is incredible how different it all looks and feels from airfield to airfield.  So we set off for Beverly, MA, approximately 20 miles northeast along the coast.

It didn’t take long to change our plans.  The ceiling was dropping and was below 1500 feet so we had to change our route to Lawrence, MA.  Off to Lawrence which is a controlled airport, the conditions were right and it was very quiet.  We were able to do a few touch and goes with a couple of short field approaches.  My key learning on the short field today was to account for the float, so my aiming point needs to be shorter than the planned touch down point.

On the last landing we decided to head back to Bedford since we were seeing a bit of rain and mist on the wind screen.  At 2,000 feet MSL we also noticed mist/rain freezing and accummulating very lightly on the front edge of the wings and on the windscreen.  The temperature check showed that it was below zero degrees centigrade, so time to descend to 1500 feet and keep the ice formation to a minimum.  We called in a PIREP and headed home while maintaining a low level 1500 feet altitude.  

Key learning:  get out of the icing conditions and land as soon a practiccal.  It was a great day and we did all the right things.  It was not serious or significant icing but a very prudent thing to do nonetheless.