On a recent trip from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Bowling Green, Kentucky I was flying IFR at 9,000 ft in and out of the tops that were building to the East. I started to accumulate some rime ice and asked for 11,000 to get clear on top. On the return trip at 8,000 ft. a few days later a rapid accumulation of rime ice on the visible surfaces and windshield was taken care of by an approved descent to 6,000. I saw about 1/4" of ice with very little effect on the performance of the airplane. I try to avoid ice and thunderstorms at all times as I did for 22 years I owned our Piper Archer II but I don't like being totally ignorant of the specific effect on the performance of this type of airplane. In the Archer I was flying up the Pacific coast by San Simion one time after reading Robert Buck's book "Weather Flying" which says at one point if you want to learn about weather flying go fly in weather. I was in the clouds just enough that I could see the light glow above and the plane was accumulating ice. Since all I had to do was climb a little and I would be in clear skies I decided to put the book's instructions to the test. I announced my situation to ATC but declined immediate action, telling them I would want to climb if things didn't improve. After roughtly 1.25" of ice had accumulated I was at full power, carb heat on and I could tell the plane was about at the end of it's flying capability so I requested a higher altitude. It was a very laborious climb but I didn't have far to go before I was in the glowing sunlight. One might suspect that the ice would immediately melt away in the bright sunlight but this was not the case and when I let back down into the clouds for the instrument approach to Monterey it all still seemed to be there with me. During the descent the ice started melting in the warmer air in the lower clouds. Many times after that when I encountered ice I still looked for an immediate out but I had some clue when the plane was going to want to fall out of the sky. Not wanting to go through that data gathering experience again I would like to ask if there is any experience or published data of RV-6A performance with airframe ice? The question is not intended to get information to give confidence to continue flying as is when ice is encountered so CFIs please relax - if you don't have any hard data please spare me. I'm sure no one has implemented a test plan for this but if you have experienced icing in flight on an RV-6A any specific performance related information would be appreciated - like "I encountered clear or rime icing conditions and 1/4" accumulated on the leading edge of the wings before I could exit the icing conditions - lost airspeed but maintained altitude during the encounter - no control or power problems were experienced."
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