A touch of ice
This morning I got up early and went out to the airport to crank up for a flight to KCFD, about 800nm away. I ended up taking off right at sunrise, but didn't get to see much of it. I entered the clouds at about 500' and started talking to Charlotte approach. Before long they had me climbing up to my requested altitude of 10,000'. Around 6,000' I noticed the temperature falling off pretty quickly to get near freezing so I turned on the pitot heat and started watching for ice. Still in the clouds once leveling out at 10,000' I started to see a bit of ice just forming on the wings. I immediately turned on the TKS anti-ice fluid and it started working with a few minutes. I reported the conditions to ATC and, after leaning out the engine for cruise, was paying careful attention to the ice. After a bit the TKS had cleared most of the slight icing that had accumulated and it appeared that before long I would be out of the clouds, so I stayed put. However, within 5...