That's hard to understand, as winter has many things going for it. Summer heat spawns such often-unpredictable (and unflyable) phenomena as tornados, hurricanes and thunderstorms, whereas winter usually features nothing worse than snow, wind and cold temperatures.

I grew up in Alaska, where many residents regard winter as more of a blessing than a curse, a time for skiing, dog-
sledding, snowshoeing, ice skating and yes, flying. Up north, aircraft owners think nothing of warming up the Bonanza, Warrior, 150 or 185 for a flight whenever the weather is decent, no matter what the season.

It's true flying in winter demands more work than at other times of year, but the enhanced performance, often spectacularly improved visibility and potentially greater range can make winter an equally favored season.

During 10 years in America's largest state, I grew to enjoy the cold weather of the Far North, even if it was at times extreme. My first flight as a 13-year-old CAP cadet was in a bedraggled 85 hp not-so-Super Cub on skis out of Anchorage's Merrill Field. Later, during my sophomore year at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, I flew in a ski-equipped Cessna 180 on several wolf-counting missions in temps that often dropped to -30 degrees C.

I thought it was all a big adventure, and it never occurred to me that some people would stop flying their airplanes in winter, just because it was cold and there was snow on the ground. CAP flew all year round on search-and-rescue missions, mostly search and rarely rescue.

Depending upon where you live, winter can be an incredibly beautiful time to fly. Generally speaking, the sky is crisper, cleaner and colder, offering better visibility than in summer; the airplane performs better than during the warmer months because of the denser air, and strong seasonal winds sometimes can whisk your airplane to your destination in less time than usual.

Flying in winter does demand a few special precautions, however. You may need to review some basic pilot techniques and adopt a few new ones if you hope to realize the benefits of winter flying without some of the problems that go with it.

Keeping the airplane in a hangar is an obvious choice to avoid accumulation of ice and snow. Pilots who hangar their airplanes at home base often don't worry about providing the same protection on a long trip. It's perhaps ironic that conditions demanding a more thorough preflight often result in an abbreviated walkaround.

A lighted, heated hangar expedites the preflight, reduces the temptation to skip some items and streamlines the process of preparing the airplane to fly. Even an unheated hangar is better than leaving your bird sitting on the ramp overnight in frigid conditions.

A hangar will prevent frost or snow from accumulating on the wings and tail, and keep the airplane aerodynamically flyable. It will also preclude snow and ice from jamming or plugging pitot tubes, static ports and air inlets.

I ferried a Marchetti SF-260 from Santa Monica to Coventry, UK, several years back by the usual Goose Bay, Narsarsuaq, Reykjavik route. Sadly, there was no more room in the large group hangar at Reykjavik when I arrived, so the Marchetti had to sit out.

The following morning, there was a thick layer of ice and snow on the airplane, effectively contaminating the airfoil. Since the deice truck was out of commission, the only viable solution was to use my credit cards to clear the wings and tail of frozen residue. I was careful to choose only those cards I knew I probably wouldn't need on the remainder of the trip. Sure enough, I broke three cards in the 90-minute de-ice process. (For the record, my Chevron card was the strongest.)

Incidentally, don't even consider using antifreeze to dissolve snow and ice on a painted, parked airplane. Antifreeze consists primarily of ethylene glycol, which will discolor paint. If your airplane is polished aluminum, there's no paint to damage, but spilled antifreeze is bad for the environment, and it will poison any animal that consumes it.

One of the obvious benefits of a heated hangar, assuming you can find one on the road, is that you'll save the money you would've paid for a preheat or a battery jump. This will make engine start as easy as it would be in Southern California in April.

A cold-soaked airplane, left outside overnight in temperatures below -5 degrees C, deserves both a preheat and battery jump. Some pilots argue that you really don't need a preheat until the temperature drops to -15C, but I figure if I take the best possible care of my engine, it will take care of me.

I'm no A&P mechanic, but friends who are tell me that wear and tear on moving engine parts in a cold start just isn't worth the money you'll save skipping the preheat. Bearings, rings, crankshafts and other moving parts don't last long in those conditions.

Preheat typically demands less than an hour while you file a flight plan, tend to customs, pay for fuel and services, and drink coffee. Thirty to 60 minutes of heat will usually bring the engine to a temperature that should allow a normal start.

Incidentally, try to resist the temptation to have an extra preheat hose fed through the pilot's storm window to warm the cabin interior. Preheaters sometimes emit carbon monoxide, and that's the last thing a pilot needs to have floating around inside an aircraft cockpit.

Once the engine is running, be cautious when taxiing on a snow/ice surface, especially in extreme conditions. When temperatures subceed about -30 degrees C overnight, tires may freeze a flat spot on the bottom. Add major power to taxi, and you may start chipping rubber on the corners of the flat spot when the tire begins to roll. Consider having the lineman dedicate a few extra minutes to each tire during preheat. Either way, it's better to induce taxi with minimal throttle to barely get the wheels moving and provide the rubber a chance to expand slowly.

Breakaway thrust will probably be higher, and you may need more power to maintain proper steering in snow. If you're taxiing in slush, keep the speed low to avoid splashing water onto the tires, brakes or gear mechanism. Keep in mind the brakes may be locked up initially if you applied the parking brake.

I once landed the first Piper Mirage (headed for Germany) at Goose Bay, Labrador at about -25 degrees C, only to discover the brakes were totally frozen. Fortunately, the runway was still covered with snow, and the Piper skidded to a stop without damage to the tires.

Similarly, taxiway lines may be obscured with snow or ice, and snow accumulations may cause other airplanes to be parked without the usual clearance from the taxiway centerline.

Regardless of your normal practice, leave the flaps full up during taxi to avoid blowing snow or freezing water into hinge tracks. Try to maintain a greater interval between you and any traffic ahead, since directional control may be marginal.

When you push the throttle up for takeoff behind a normally aspirated engine in extreme low temp conditions, at least consider the effect cold, compressed air may have on power. If you're flying from near sea level at, say, -35 degrees C, the density altitude will be roughly minus 4,000 feet. That's 4,000 feet below sea level. That means full throttle may deliver 33 inches of manifold pressure rather than the normal 29. Consider monitoring power to keep the mp below 30 inches.

Perhaps surprisingly, bird strike hazards can be higher in winter, especially on asphalt runways after sunset. Asphalt tends to absorb and retain heat during the day, a factor that can attract birds not smart enough to fly south for the winter. No matter what combination of lights you normally use for takeoffs, it's best to turn on everything for a cold weather departure day or night. Once you're safely off and up, you can power down the electrons to save the landing lights.

Another good idea on retractable-gear models is to leave the wheels down for an extra 30 seconds after liftoff to blow any water or accumulated snow off the undercarriage.

If you're willing to fly relatively high, winter winds may provide a welcome push, especially if you're flying east. True jet streams rarely reach much below FL200, but breezes at lower levels will usually compliment the winds up high. If the wind isn't going your way, you can cut your losses by flying low. (Back in March 1994, Mooney loaned me a new Bravo, and I took advantage of spectacular tailwinds at FL250. I flew coast-to-coast from Los Angeles to Jacksonville in seven hours nine minutes at an average 300.2 mph, setting eight, world, city-to-city speed records in class C1C and unlimited in the process. That would have been highly unlikely in summer.)

Returning to Earth can be a little different in winter. Falling snow can render landing lights worse than useless during a night approach. You may actually find forward visibility better without them, as the high intensity light tends to scatter off the snowflakes and bounce back at you. Better to avoid fast approaches to slick runways and plant the airplane firmly on the asphalt rather than try to grease it.

Stay off the brakes if there's any question of ice under the snow, and when you do apply them, do so gently and evenly. Never try to brake and turn at the same time, especially if you're flying a tricycle with the steering wheel out front. An iced runway isn't the place to practice short field procedures, especially if black ice conditions prevail.

Finally, don't be afraid to say to hell with it and go someplace else if conditions aren't to your liking. I've made enough dumb decisions on snowy runways to scare myself several times, fortunately without damage.

Winter flying, like aviating in any other season, has its peculiarities, but snow pilots are convinced the rewards are worth the effort. If you're forewarned with a little knowledge of winter's potential pitfalls, you can enjoy flying when the sun and the temperature are low.

Icing terrifies many pilots. Under the worst circumstances, it can turn a beautiful, aerodynamically clean aircraft design into a flying brick with little possibility of control. Fortunately, icing hazards can be minimized with intelligent decision-making and strict adherence to the pilot's universal rule, "Fly the airplane," and the first corollary, "Don't panic."

You can sometimes negate some of that fear at major airports with ground deicing, though that's an expensive treatment that's not always available at smaller airports. If you do use ground anti-icing, try to avoid the fate of Air Florida's Palm 90 at Washington National in 1982. The 737 was deiced, then delayed 50 minutes and again covered with ice during the wait. The crew departed anyway, the airplane stalled on takeoff and crashed into the Potomac River, clipping a bridge in the process. For that reason, try to get into the air as soon as possible after application, or you may need to repeat the process. The Air Florida crew needed to but didn't.

A more expensive alternative is TKS, an inevitable abbreviation for Tecalimus, Kilchrist and Smyth, inventors of the system sometimes better known as the "weeping wing." A good friend in Boston installed an aftermarket TKS system in his Mooney 201. Reed flew regular IFR on business trips around New England year ’round, and made it a habit to top the six-gallon TKS tank if there was any possibility of in-flight icing. He would simply select the anti-ice position---that dispenses about 1.5 gph---right after engine start. By the time he pushed the power up for takeoff, the wings would be coated, and he could fly relatively impervious to the danger of icing.

If he did encounter extreme conditions, he'd merely select the deice setting, which doubles the TKS flow rate, and that would practically guarantee no ice could adhere to the airplane, though available TKS time would be cut in half.

In delivering new and used aircraft across the North Atlantic since 1977, I've had TKS protection a few dozen times but rarely needed it if I was careful in selecting a cruise altitude. Traditional wisdom suggests icing is only a concern inside a temperature envelope of -20 degrees C to +2 degrees C. (Remember, OAT gauges are even less reliable than fuel gauges.) For that reason, most experienced pilots try to operate above the weather in winter, or to climb above it when they experience icing.

Ideally, you'll need a clearance for that, but don't wait too long. While ferrying an Aerostar 700 from Tousous le Noble, France to Cape Cod 20 years ago, I was held at 8,000 feet in rime ice over the North Sea for 20 minutes, despite three requests for higher. Finally, I advised the controller I was going to declare an emergency and ascend to my assigned FL160 if he didn't immediately clear me to a higher altitude out of the ice. I got my clearance in 20 seconds.

The alternative to TKS is pneumatic boots on the wing and tail-leading edges, usually with alcohol deice systems for the props. Boots aren't as effective as TKS, but if you understand their limitations (primarily, don't activate them too early), they'll break off ice in chunks and help keep you safe.

Keep in mind that most icing is confined to narrow, vertical bands of cold, moist air, often no more than 500 feet thick and 10 miles across. If you stumble into ice accidentally, you'll probably fly out of it in a few minutes.

The normal rule in icing conditions is to climb first, while you still can. If you ascend, and things don't improve, you can always descend. Descend first, and you may lose the option of climbing back up.

If there's any good news, it may be that in-flight icing, whether it's rime or clear, is generally rare and most often easy to avoid. The temperature limits favor semi-low altitudes where moisture content is higher, along with fall and spring when temperatures aren't so cold as to completely preclude icing. Winter isn't the most popular season for ice in flight.