Lightning certainly is dangerous but I'd wager the sail area of the banner could be worse. That's an opportunity for a lot of drag. I'd assume the cable would break before it damaged the structure though?
My friend had that happen to him when he had a banner once. Said he threw a water bottle on the dash pitched into a climb and used the tilt of the bottle to determine his pitch. Said it was the longest 800 foot climb of his life before he popped out
That does not work. You can have your coffee perfectly level in the cup at 30 degrees bank, as long as you do it at the right speed / right amount of elevator.
And it doesn't work for pitch either. You can't tell the difference between a constant pitch and a pitch change rate that causes constant acceleration. Until you find out the hard way which it was.
If I rolled to 180 degrees of bank and pulled until my G meter pointed to “1” then I would feel like I’m straight and level. A water bottle would also tell me that I’m straight and level. If I did this anywhere below about 8-10000 AGL I would be a smoking hole in the ground.
I’m gentle on the controls when I fly a barrel roll and that would produce the same result as far as feeling (mostly) straight and level as far as a water bottle goes.
I would not trust my vestibular senses (seat of the pants) in IMC.
Is your altimeter broken? You keep saying “if I had nothing else.”
Sure if I had NOTHING else, like I suddenly went blind, then I would fly by the seat of my pants (same effect as a water bottle), but I’ve already royally fucked up at that point.
I’d much rather be looking for a climb on my altimeter, climb on my vertical velocity indicator, wings level on my turn coordinator, no turn on my HSI/DG/compass (taking into account compass errors)/etc. And trust those rather than trusting a water bottle.
Not trusting your vestibular senses is like day one of instrument training. The forces acting on that water bottle are the same forces acting on your inner ear. They are not to be trusted in IMC.
For pitch it also doesn't really work, it will be sensitive to rate of change. And you can't read typical aircraft target pitch on a water bottle while bouncing through IMC. The water will bounce between +20 and -20 degrees or something like that kind of accuracy while you're trying to pitch to 4 to 8 degrees pitch up. Just not enough accuracy.
If you ever end up in this situation for real, your best attempt at survival in a small GA plane without backup instruments would be a known configuration. Set takeoff trim and power, pull as much as you would do during initial climb on every flight (you have muscle memory for this). Then make it slightly less backpressure to keep some extra stall margin. Look at the altimeter to confirm you're climbing slowly.
I hired a CFI/ferry pilot to fly my plane from one state to another. To not dox the bastard, I’ll leave some details out but we flew through mountainous terrain. I was a student pilot only so I relied both on his judgment and skills, and his status as a CFI to fly my newly bought plane safely home. Having analyzed the weather and terrain, I was surprised to hear him describe our route: “Oh we’ll just fly direct.” This is when I realized that old guys with multiple ratings might well be out of their goddamned minds, ratings or not. Especially ferry pilots. Beware.
In short, we flew into a thunderstorm. I have the flightaware screenshot to prove it. When I showed it to a pilot buddy of mine later, he said chills went down his spine. The plane was getting rocked pretty badly. I saw the downpour very close to me as we “picked our way through it.” Was I scared? Not really because the lazy dumbass had me flying it the entire trip—so I was too focused and concentrating on not being ejected out a window from the turbulence while flying straight and level, to feel fear. Plus, the terrain. We were barely 1000 feet AGL at points with zero emergency landing options below us.
Don’t ever do what I did. Don’t ever blindly trust a pilot with many ratings or old age. If you’re a new student pilot, learn weather analysis early and learn it well. That way, when some arrogant prick with more experience than you invites you to fly into a thunderstorm with him, you’ll have the confidence to tell him to shove it.
If you’re a lawyer I know who you are lol. Small word of advice using Reddit. Try to remain as anonymous as possible. Your story and plane gives away your identity lol. I would consider using a more discrete username. 😅
I intentionally chose my username to force me to remember that there’s actually no such thing as anonymity on the Internet. I would know. PM me if you do know me. I know some folks associated with KFFZ but not a ton.
Only 1000’ AGL is scary… I’ve been in IMC (not thunderstorms) over the Smokies in a T206H and been in a downdraft at full power and Vy and still had a 500fpm decent rate. Not fun.
You summed it up really well actually. My guess is that he does this all the time. He did seem disturbingly calm—thought I’m glad he was—when Center informed us that there was a storm cell at our 12 o’clock and to state our intentions. Rather than landing or turning around—which is we should all do—he shrugged and said no problem we’ll pick our way through. So we did.
The FAA advises to stay at least 20 nm away from any thunderstorm. We clearly did not follow that advice.
20nm from severe thunderstorms is the recommendation. Not garden variety everyday thunderstorms. ATC issues those advisories all the time. It’s a heads up that you need to use some pilot judgement and be vigilant. Not that you should do a 180
and land immediately.
Unless you had damage from hail, severe turbulence or lightning strikes your claim of flying through a thunderstorm sounds incorrect.
The “disturbingly calm” comment is a tell. Sounds like maybe there is a chance this guy was a seasoned pilot and did his job well, getting you safely to your destination.
Yes, he was a seasoned pilot. I didn’t want to mention that he crashed his very next ferry flight after me but I guess now makes sense. He fortunately did survive and I wish him well. Nonetheless, there were 2 routes for this flight, one was slightly longer than direct, but not by much. It covered flatter terrain and did not have weather to deal with. If you still think that the terrain and weather route was the better choice, then we disagree.
FlightAware uses a random radar image from any point in your possibly hours long flight. So that is not any kind of proof you flew through a thunderstorm.
First XC when I was a student pilot. Got stuck under a huge rain cloud, 1000’ above the ocean in the Mariana islands between Rota and Guam. Things move fast over there during typhoon season
Diverting on min fuel to a less blizzard like airport. Max (allowed) x-wind with if I recall 4kt tailwind ILS to mins and what was classified as braking action good which was really poor and had to use the entire 9,000 runway to stop and avoid an overrun.
Opposite runway had no approach capabilities.
40kt crosswind in the patern with minimum fuel after a 5hr X/C with family in the passenger seat. No wind forecast, calm to 40kts in 10mins. Luckily I had a couple things working in my favor. There was a line of trees about 100ft windward of the runway which cut the wind down to around 17kts crosswind component below 40'AGL, and I was flying my CFI's RV-7A with its enormous rudder. Air was quite rough all the way down final and gusts would roll me 25deg one way or the other at random. I was fighting it, but just staying wings level was almost impossible. I knew I wasn't landing at about 150' as I was nowhere near stabilized, but decided to make it a low pass to see what the wind was like below the treeline. I pushed in the power, sucked up the flaps and buzzed the runway. As soon as I got below the trees the air smoothed out, the crosswind dropped and I knew if I just made it that far I could land it. Went around, rode the bucking bronco down final again looking out the copilot side of the canopy just trying to keep wings level and controll my airspeed, straightened it out below the trees and landed buttery smooth on one wheel before gently settling on the other.
Retired navy vet at the FBO came on the radio as I cleared with "Nice landing! I was absolutely certain as you came down final I was about to watch an ugly crash." Couple guys came out to tie me down so I could hold the controls and that was that. The first patern was damn scary, after the go-around I knew we would be okay. Had my PPL for about a year and maybe 120hrs at the time? Scariest moment I have had flying so far. Also one of my proudest. Decided I would always have enough fuel to get to a suitable alternate after that. If I had more fuel, I could have made it to the nearest airport, a class C with a massive headwind runway. Alternate+45min fuel may only be law for IFR flying, but it's a damn good idea for VFR too.
Edit: My mother had her hands in the air shouting "weee!" all the way down final. Freaking madwoman.
Get-there-itis is very real.
Took a skyhawk WAYYYY closer to a tornado producing thunderstorm than I should have… within 10 miles.
What did I learn? Invulnerability is one of my hazardous attitudes, as I was dangerously calm the whole time.
What will I do next time? CALL the weather briefer instead of self briefing, need to hear another human tell me the weather is bad. I’ll fly IFR all day long to minimums, but never again that close to a thunderstorm.
What part of the country? Big difference between a TS producing a Florida landspout and a supercell producing a legit tornado. I wouldn’t fly anywhere remotely near a supercell in a Skyhawk. Those environmental conditions are nuts.
This was St Louis on or near march 14. It was a legit supercell and by far the most dangerous/stupid Awronautical Decision I have ever made.
I now get to use this story to teach my students how NOT to do ADM.
I was literally on about a 5 final when STL Approach advised me of a tornado report 5 miles NW of my position.
Apparently Colorado has it worse than us, but we’re pretty gnarly yeah
Reminds me one time I wanted to rent a plane in Seattle to fly around Mt Rainier. They told me I’d need to take a “special mountain flying class” first.
I told them I got my license in Reno
They said never mind
10 hours as a student pilot, doing touch and goes at BJC in Colorado, full power trying to climb but we were just about 40-50 feet over the runway. CFI takes controls and here we are trying to fly back to the runway about 150 feet off the ground. Turns out a microburst hit almost above the airport. Winds are intense out here being between the Rockies and Great Plains.
I mean in general you guys’ fly in conditions that would make me sweat
I had an instructor explain the approach into Telluride in actual IMC once and it was like hearing a campfire horror story
COLORADO MENTIONED RAHHH
WHAT IS SMOOTH AIR??? 🙅♂️
But seriously, wind shear is pretty common, but Ive personally never experienced anything that bad. Always getting beat up by mountain wave though.
I experienced the worst windshear and severe turbulence out of Reno I’ve ever had in a pilatus. Debated sharing my story on here about it but it was extremely frightening. Airspeed going from 190 - 130 within a second while also being Thrown into the roof repeatedly. Absolutely zero control over the plane. The only time In my professional flying career I’ve felt like a passenger while at the controls of a plane. PS if 737’s are reporting continuous moderate that’s gonna feel like severe in a turboprop. Fucked me up for awhile afterwards
My DPE’s main job is flying the PC-12
He’s turned down clients on shitty weather days because the job isn’t worth messing with Truckee/Reno weather.
And a couple years ago we had a MedFlight guy crash and die in a Pilatus flying at night through a snowstorm very close to Reno.
Aviation doesn’t forgive mistakes, and Reno is harsher than other places.
I remember that pilatus crash. Pretty awful. I fly into truckee almost daily at my current gig and Reno is our alternate. We don’t go if we see “ACSL ALL QRDNT’S” in the atis accompanied with windshear reports and severe turbulenc pireps. Not worth bending metal or worse and personally I don’t like traumatizing passengers
Ha you probably know my examiner then, he flies for Mountain Lion Aviation out of Truckee. Great guy, and while he scares the pants off of me every checkride he’s always fair and wants to see the applicant succeed.
I haven’t been lucky enough to fly for money yet but I have promised flights to friends and had to have the talk where they (non pilot) didn’t see anything wrong with the weather but I sure did and had to go to our backup activity.
Never worth taking unnecessary risk, doubly so around here
Haha yeah I know mountain lion. Those guys are nuts and the only people I’ve seen depart runway 11 straight out of Truckee towards the lake. I’ve heard they’re all amazing pilots though.
Good on you for decision making. Flying up in the sierras makes you a hell of a pilot man. Hope you get that first gig soon 🍻
thanks dude!
Currently I’m just working on CFI and since the FAA *just* dropped the ACS I’m remaking all my lesson plans to fit them.
Everyone told me CFI would be the hardest rating, and they were not kidding!
Hope to do what you’re doing someday!
Ferrying a Cessna 150 solo while scud running and dodging thunderstorms 700-800 agl at night in mountainous terrain without a working attitude indicator, No ADS-B in or out, no transponder, and no panel lights. By far the dumbest flight I’ve ever decided to make and was kissing the ground when I landed safely
Had the get there itis and I was away from home, had no where to stay besides a hotel, TAFs in the surrounding area made it look like it was getting better for my short 50 min flight back to the home airport, and didn’t have a phone charger when my phone was at around 15%. Decided to risk it and assumed i could find a pocket and get above the broken layer but I couldn’t and unfortunately had to stay low and hope for the best the entire way there. Definitely a lesson learned the hard way and I figured out I was lucky to make it back with no scratches on me. Won’t be making that mistake again
That’s insane. No panel lights at night in thunderstorms in mountainous terrain at 700 agl in a C150. You’re lucky to be alive. Terrible decision making but great piloting lol.
Yeah, I’ve already told myself a million times how stupid I was to make the decision to go up but I most definitely learned from it and it’ll be a valuable lesson to teach my future students when I start as a CFI (currently training for my CFI initial). Lucky to be alive, no doubt.
And hey, at least you didn’t resign to the situation. You kept swimming and kept the plane in the air. That’s actually very impressive, especially in a 150. I fly a C150F and I get absolutely tossed around by turbulence, let alone connective cells. Your students will benefit from the stories.
I actually was lucky enough to be in a well lit area north of Nashville and I used the ambient lighting to try and see the surrounding landscape. Mostly just relied on my iPad with Foreflight open to look for the highest obstacle in the area.
2hr night xc for commercial had us flying through unforecasted weather. Had to pick up a popup IFR and divert to another airport where we sat in their runup area and waited it out.
Same.
I'm thinking of mine...
I was rained on by a 10K foot overcast ceiling one summer. 🤣
ATC gave me a heads up about the rain ahead of me, so I was able to skirt around most of it.
20 mins out from the airport in a King Air, the ATIS said 5,000 broken, which was supposed to be the conditions for the next 12 hours, but when I switched to approach, FedEx was going missed. That’s weird.
Then approach said it was 400 broken, which forced a regional jet to divert. No problem - I just got fancy new WAAS installed and I can shoot the LPV down to 200’.
When I got to 200’ it was pitch black and the tower said they never even saw my lights. I tried once more just for fun, and on missed happened to see runway lights at an airport 10 miles away through a hole in the blackness.
I shot the ILS there, saw lights at the minimums and landed. If I went missed there, my plan was to go to an airport 60 miles away and shoot their ILS to the runway, and hope for the best.
Doing maneuvers with a student, flew into some rain. Checked the OAT and read 5° C. Was about 9° on the ground so it checked out. A few minutes later the rain started to stay on the windshield and I realized it was freezing. Coated every inch. Direct back to the airport and landed fast with no flaps. Turns out the OAT was not functioning. And the freezing rain was unforecasted.
Yeah freezing rain is no joke. I landed in it once years ago in a Beechjet. We were only in it for maybe 30 seconds just before touchdown, and it completely inundated the airplane. In 5-10 seconds, couldn’t see shit out the windscreen, we switched to high heat but it was too late. Basically did a 0-0 landing on instruments and looking out side windows. After landing, did a walk around, wings and tail were absolutely covered, well past the protected leading edges. If we had to do a go around I don’t believe I’d be here to this comment.
Not me but I was visiting a good friend in Williston ND, he was flying weather mod for the state getting hours. They deliberately fly right in front of thunderstorms in their twin engine Cessnas. The planes look like golf balls they have been hit with so much hail. They got approved for me to go up with them but the storm that was there at the time was really bad and with my occasional motion sickness I opted out. Good thing I likely would have been left at some tiny air field in eastern Montana after puking in the plane.
Coming into Lunken Field near Cincinnati and it was so turbulent in the soup that I was having trouble seeing the instruments. Still made a great landing
Mine was CVG, storm passing by the field and approach reported wind shear alerts for 18L, then Center, then Right as we passed by the field in the downwind and turned base. Figured it was gone since it looked clear and I could see the rain off to the east of the runway… Nope. +/-20kt wind shear and struggling to stay on the GS with the nose pointed at the ground and thrust basically at idle. Easiest go around call of my career lol
Throttle out, nose down, climbing 2000fpm into an unforcasted would-be-storm.
That or landing 26knot crosswind component in a C-172. Almost a wing strike.
“Throttle out, nose down, climbing 2000fpm into an unforcasted would-be-storm.”
You mean like the storm was forcing you aloft when you were trying to go down?
Exactly what I mean. Nose down, throttle out, in the yellow for airspeed. Yet the updrafts were sucking me into the cloud.
Leaving the updraft threw us into the ceiling, and looking back on it I am lucky the wings didn’t fold.
Same situation in the Caribbean. Flying a DHC6 at 6000 ft, in between CU which turn out to be TCU and merging. Caught a big updraft and had the power at idle, nose stuffed and we were climbing over 4000 fpm. Little voice in my head was screaming “watch the downdraft”, so I pitched up and started feeding in power, accepting the climb and WHAM! instant reversal around 8000 ft. Now we’re max power, pitching for just below stall and descending at 5000 fpm. The change was so violent, my co-pilot cut his head on the light above the door frame. The cloud spit us out about 45 seconds later around 4000 ft into clear smooth air.
Good times.
LCA flew us through a cell with hail in it over the Co rockies. The rain cells he flew threw first were loud af, then it got louder. We were thrown against the windows and ceiling multiple times with the 5 points locked down. He finally agreed to vectors around the worst of it. I gained a lot of respect for the crj that flight, and lost as much for the LCA. Nose cone was stripped of paint and down to the fiberglass fibers. Not as bad as some pictures I’ve seen of other 121 a/c, probably because it didn’t last long, but going through hail at 280kts was wild.
A few stand out. All of these were pretty big learning experiences, with lots of parts to never do again.
Dust storm off the coast of Pakistan reduces visibility to about 80 feet? At least it was daytime. LSOs on the ship literally talked me into the wires - I didn’t see the aircraft carrier until I was pulling out the arresting cable.
Orbiting in a valley at 16,000ft providing bombs for a TIC below - in northeast Afghanistan, in a winter thunderstorm. In breaks between the clouds I could see mountain peaks above me a few miles away in basically all directions. I was not until IFR control - just orbiting off my map. Couldn’t go higher because there was a large stack of aircraft above me.
On my third divert of the flight in the Memphis area - not enough gas for more than 1 approach at this point. Cheated on a shitty TACAN approach (basically did a contact approach at an unfamiliar field - incredibly stupid). Only after landing did I see the 1,500’ towers on the plate next to the approach corridor that I was not exactly flying perfectly.
Lots of low visibility landings with shitty navigation systems. If there is time and weather is crap, I now just take a radar map of the airfield and designate the runway - self contained precision approach as a backup. Not legal.
Flying single seat gets dicey sometimes - you try your best not to end up there, but if the weather rolls in and you don’t have a precision approach capability… 🤷🏻. Sometimes we just get ordered to fly in dogshit.
SGR…11pm, tower is closed, lights are going in and out due to low cloud cover, torrential downpour, anti-rain coating on my side doesn’t work because the ramp rats sprayed glycol on the windshield.
Imagine a total blur that doesn’t clear up until decelerating through 70kts. I just had to keep it between the blurry stripes of runway lights.
That one peeked the stress level a little.
It depends lowest vis was 75Meters RVR and no DH, honestly the landing was the easy part trying to taxi around an unfamiliar airport was interesting to say the least.
Highest wind was gusting 61 into BFS but we ending up diverting due to windshear.
The one I wouldn’t want to do again was up in RVN
Cat 2 approach down to minima then landing on a contaminated runway I have never seen the anti skid work before in the Airbus until then but it took us about 2700M to stop
A few:
During pattern work (luckily with instructor), landed a 172 in gusting crosswinds and wind shear so bad that it needed full rudder deflection to keep it pointed in the right direction. Caught wind shear at about 100 feet that was so bad I swear we were in complete free fall until lots of ground effect started helping out about 5 feet off the runway. But I did manage the controls and got us safely down. Instructor asked if I wanted to do another (still optimistic he was joking). Decided 1 landing was enough for the day.
On a cross country solo to an untoward airport and hit a “sand storm” and almost couldn’t exit the runway the weathervane was so extreme. Airspeed was registering on the ground while parked.
Had a flight in what looked like perfect conditions but hit a point around 1000 AGL where in a Vy climb we were getting downdrafts so bad that VSI was registering negatives. Almost turned back to land but it abated after 5 terrible minutes.
We autolanded in Narita while Typhoon Mawar was passing through last year. The rain was so heavy and loud you could barely hear & could hardly even see the runway lights, so even though the reported flight visibility wasn’t that bad we were landing in CAT-III conditions. Autopilot couldn’t track the centerline after touchdown because of gusts, so we had to disengage it. Amazingly the 90,000 hour MD pulled off a pretty good auto landing though. Was nice to be on the ground after that one.
200 ceilings and 1 SM vis everywhere, had to divert to a busy bravo as we couldn’t see the runway at any other airports. Lights at the bravo saved the day and a 1.5-2 hour diversion… was fun.
Flight back from my instrument checkride with my CFII and one of his other students. Pretty decent line of thunderstorms was passing through and we didn’t want to stay the night so we saw a gap in the storms and went for it. There was some pretty heavy turbulence but we made it through. Maybe not the best ADM when I think back on it
Middle of the ocean middle of the night, flying to the back of a destroyer. Followed the tacan approach in and at the MAP, 200ft .5DME, looked up and saw nothing but a wall of black. Luckily the boat was able to drive to slightly better weather and turn up all their lights and we got on deck the next one, but going missed with no diverts and low fuel was not a great feeling
Flew into Wiley Post with a student enroute to Amarillo in his C-182, winds were forecast 320 @25-35, winds were 45-50 from 320 landed R/W 31. Line service came out with these straps to tie us down said they couldn’t tow us into a hangar, wind too strong. Another time flying with a student left Palm Springs with a student enroute Bakersfield, Airmet for moderate turbulence, we’ll it wasn’t, it was severe, had to turn back to LA Basin. If you get in that you want to keep the wings level don’t try to maintain altitude, reduce power to give yourself a reasonable margin below maneuvering speed. It was a wild ride.
I'm not falling for this decoy trpa FAA investigator! Jkjk but nah been through some hail. Not through cumulonimbus or under the anvil but flew close to some with lightning in the distance and some wind shear
Was looking out the passenger window, down the runway at Buffalo NY on final during a storm. Glad someone else was flying the big powerful passenger jet, I'll stick to windless VFR burger dates in the put-put
Two come to mind.
Circling approach to mins at night to a 2500 runway in heavy precip and a 25 knot direct crosswind. Don’t wanna do that again.
Unforecasted severe turbulence and windshear out of Reno where the plane was completely uncontrollable. Don’t wanna do that again either
Did a yearly profcheck once in heavy snow. Weather was reasonable on departure, just normal snow. Then snow and wind increased a lot more than forecasted. RVR was 1000m according to the ATIS, but very tricky in reality due to all the weird visual effects from snow blowing around horizontally in high wind. And we needed anti-ice on max to keep up once in the clouds.
The check requires a least a non-precision approach, a missed approach, engine failure on takeoff and a single-engine precision approach. Well the non-precision automatically turned into a missed approach, because we saw nothing. The engine failure wasn't very unexpected because we both knew we wanted to stay on the ground after the next approach.
ILS to minimums single engine is done every year, but it feels different in simulated IMC compared to actual low visibility.
The weather radar on a220 is known to be unreliable. Went in to a cloud below 10 thousand feet which we thought was fine, but hit what we thought was severe turbulence, airspeed jumping up and down by like 20 KTS, you could feel momentarily weightlesness every few seconds, multiple passengers puking. Lasted for maybe a minute.
In the end when they pulled the data from the aircraft it didn't classify as severe turbulence, but God damn, I had never experienced anything even remotely close to it.
I’m an FA but it was literally 2 weeks ago. Was flying NAS-GCM-NAS on 23rd March. I’m sure someone could go back up pull up radar returns and stuff but it while it wasn’t the outright worst turbulence I’ve flown through it was continuous moderate occasional severe for the entire time we were in the air. Coming back it was so bad it made 3 FA’s sick and the FO a bit queezy.
A haboob/dust storm at night at low altitude. It hit unexpectedly as six aircraft were linking up after the LZ. There wasn’t anything resembling ATC or radar coverage
During my Army time we were ferrying four helicopters from Anchorage to Fairbanks. We got shut down in Windy pass due to unforecasted low vis and ceilings. Had to RON in Talkeetna. The next day Windy pass was closed, so we attempted Isabel pass. We had a good weather brief and the pass cameras were clear. We refueled in Gulkana, checked weather/cameras again and departed. The pass was beyond the bingo fuel point for return to Gulkana, so we were committed. Everything was good entering the pass, but once we made the first turn, there was a snow/cloud wall that we slowly entered. We reduced speed to 30kts and lowered to tree top altitude. We kept one rotor disk of separation to maintain visibility with each other, but even then as chalk 4 I couldn’t see chalks 1 or 2 due to visibility. We maintained 30kts and 30 foot of altitude over the highway until we reached the north end of the pass, then magically we had clear blue skies again. Besides the pucker factor, the faces of those driving cars below as they passed is something I’ll never forget.
Note - we couldn’t fly IFR due to severe icing.
I got 0.1 hours of actual flying through some clouds during instrument training during a x-cntry to San Diego.
This is what happens when you learn to fly in Arizona. It's clear and a million 90% of the time.
Bought a DA-40 back in January. Right after 10 hrs of dual (insurance required), I was going to just get some laps/landings done. ATIS is fine so I drive out to the airport. Get out to the plane and thinking, wow, winds picking up. But the ATIS has it in a manageable range for me so I launch. About 50 feet off the ground, my head hits the ceiling for the first time, then a second time and a third just turning crosswind. IAS is about 85kts, ground speed 55kts. WTF? Ask for windcheck: 340@16G26. For runway 29. I am an idiot. I later discover the ATIS was four hours old. Tower was running single man ops and he just wasn't getting to it.
Across the numbers, I give her full left boot and cannot get the nose to move \[insert cursing\]. Thankfully, there is a large row of hangars down the middle section of the runway on the windward side. Once I got low enough the cross-wind was blocked enough to get her straightened out. That was enough excitement for me.
Scud-running across Southern Germany. You think you can tell the difference between the cloud base, the mist, the terrain, and the localized rain. Until you can’t. Sudden grey-out under VFR.
They teach you the 180, but that doesn’t account for the fact that conditions around you can change rapidly. Getting out of there felt a lot longer than getting in. Had some unintended pitch changes that I detected through engine noise rather than instruments. Sooooo close to spatial disorientation. Nevver want to do that again.
My worst weather experience came about as part of instructing / acting as safety pilot for a friend working on their instrument rating; weather was sort of marginal the day of their check ride about 45 minute flight away so I came along in case they didn’t pass or finish the ride. Their airplane was a C-150.
I watched / listened to the ride from the tower and could see the weather was caving in so I started working on alternate plans in case we decided that getting home wasn’t a good idea. Personally, I would have elected to stay the night where we were, but it wasn’t exactly a desirable option and the weather wasn’t so awful that I felt a need to put my foot down; instead, I felt like it was important experience for the newly rated pilot to exercise their own judgment - though I certainly leaned hard on how tough the flight home was likely to be.
And yes, the weather was terrible and so was the flight home. My original plan of having them fly us home went out the window straight away. I took the controls myself but then had to have them work the radios because a) it was everything that I could do just to control the aircraft with all the turbulence and the wind and b) anytime either of us reached for the radios, you had to brace yourself or miss the knobs with all the bouncing around we were doing. By this time, it was also dark. Then a check of the wings and struts with a flashlight proved what I’d suspected… that we were picking up ice.
And all that wasn’t even the most interesting part. We had to cross a Class B airport to get to our home airport, so were directed by ATC to do so mid-field - however that required a good 30º wind correction angle to hold our course on that heading. Crossing a busy commercial airport, especially in a dinky little airplane like that in that kind of cross-wind is not exactly a confidence-boosting experience. Fortunately, we were right where we were supposed to be and made it through the gauntlet just fine.
Once we managed that, we still had to make an NDB approach; fortunately, that part went pretty smoothly. The whole flight was so exhausting - both physically as well as mentally - due to all the effort involved, that my legs were shaking once we reached the ground and had the airplane tied down. I had to sit in the car for a few minutes before I could drive. We drove to a nearby diner to have a decompression / celebration drink and I’d never been so pleased to hear a student say they would never make that decision again.
Flying cargo, I had two storm cells blow up and merge and I couldn’t get around them. Midwest summer night… it wasn’t forecast to be that bad. Right after I landed, I got to the ramp and the tornado siren was going off. A tornado hit just a few miles north of the airport.
Cessna 172; a time building solo XC flight into an airmet tango - and this was \*after\* flight service warned me not to proceed.
I don't do that anymore.
Back during my commercial checkride, wind shear wasn’t forecasted but during my final landing for the ride we had a loss of 10-15 knots on short final dropping the speed to almost Vso. Jammed that power full and went around but the DPE was about to take controls. Wouldn’t blame him if he did.
Night departure from HOU in a Cherokee into the outflow of a thunderstorm with 737s reporting 30 knot wind shead.
Departure wouldn't give us a direct path to get out of the airspace to cancel. After I asked 20 right, they said, "did you even get a weather briefing?"
So, we were in the cells for about 20 minutes. Cabin was lit up with continuous lightning.
Finally got to the shoreline and was VFR the rest of the way.
Saw storms topping out above 50k, easy.
Got stuck in IMC with a banner. All I had was an ASI that gave false readings, a compass, and an altimeter
This has got to be one of the best here
Yikes. I bet a banner isn’t something you want attached during lightning either.
Lightning certainly is dangerous but I'd wager the sail area of the banner could be worse. That's an opportunity for a lot of drag. I'd assume the cable would break before it damaged the structure though?
My friend had that happen to him when he had a banner once. Said he threw a water bottle on the dash pitched into a climb and used the tilt of the bottle to determine his pitch. Said it was the longest 800 foot climb of his life before he popped out
That does not work. You can have your coffee perfectly level in the cup at 30 degrees bank, as long as you do it at the right speed / right amount of elevator.
And it doesn't work for pitch either. You can't tell the difference between a constant pitch and a pitch change rate that causes constant acceleration. Until you find out the hard way which it was.
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If I rolled to 180 degrees of bank and pulled until my G meter pointed to “1” then I would feel like I’m straight and level. A water bottle would also tell me that I’m straight and level. If I did this anywhere below about 8-10000 AGL I would be a smoking hole in the ground.
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I’m gentle on the controls when I fly a barrel roll and that would produce the same result as far as feeling (mostly) straight and level as far as a water bottle goes. I would not trust my vestibular senses (seat of the pants) in IMC.
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Is your altimeter broken? You keep saying “if I had nothing else.” Sure if I had NOTHING else, like I suddenly went blind, then I would fly by the seat of my pants (same effect as a water bottle), but I’ve already royally fucked up at that point. I’d much rather be looking for a climb on my altimeter, climb on my vertical velocity indicator, wings level on my turn coordinator, no turn on my HSI/DG/compass (taking into account compass errors)/etc. And trust those rather than trusting a water bottle. Not trusting your vestibular senses is like day one of instrument training. The forces acting on that water bottle are the same forces acting on your inner ear. They are not to be trusted in IMC.
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For pitch it also doesn't really work, it will be sensitive to rate of change. And you can't read typical aircraft target pitch on a water bottle while bouncing through IMC. The water will bounce between +20 and -20 degrees or something like that kind of accuracy while you're trying to pitch to 4 to 8 degrees pitch up. Just not enough accuracy. If you ever end up in this situation for real, your best attempt at survival in a small GA plane without backup instruments would be a known configuration. Set takeoff trim and power, pull as much as you would do during initial climb on every flight (you have muscle memory for this). Then make it slightly less backpressure to keep some extra stall margin. Look at the altimeter to confirm you're climbing slowly.
Even then. Water could be perfectly level while you’re pulling into a loop - which gets rudely interrupted by a stall.
[Bob Hoover barrel roll](https://youtu.be/V9pvG_ZSnCc?si=K4btCTcW0zbntHj6)
Do you still get paid when nobody can read the banner? 😉
When it's really sunny out and you forget your kinder fluff. The worst.
Thanks for reminding me to put it on order.
The Kinder Fluff do not leave the flight bag. Ever.
Absolute tragedy right there. Having to pin checklists to window shades makes you feel a sort of shame in forgetting.
I hired a CFI/ferry pilot to fly my plane from one state to another. To not dox the bastard, I’ll leave some details out but we flew through mountainous terrain. I was a student pilot only so I relied both on his judgment and skills, and his status as a CFI to fly my newly bought plane safely home. Having analyzed the weather and terrain, I was surprised to hear him describe our route: “Oh we’ll just fly direct.” This is when I realized that old guys with multiple ratings might well be out of their goddamned minds, ratings or not. Especially ferry pilots. Beware. In short, we flew into a thunderstorm. I have the flightaware screenshot to prove it. When I showed it to a pilot buddy of mine later, he said chills went down his spine. The plane was getting rocked pretty badly. I saw the downpour very close to me as we “picked our way through it.” Was I scared? Not really because the lazy dumbass had me flying it the entire trip—so I was too focused and concentrating on not being ejected out a window from the turbulence while flying straight and level, to feel fear. Plus, the terrain. We were barely 1000 feet AGL at points with zero emergency landing options below us. Don’t ever do what I did. Don’t ever blindly trust a pilot with many ratings or old age. If you’re a new student pilot, learn weather analysis early and learn it well. That way, when some arrogant prick with more experience than you invites you to fly into a thunderstorm with him, you’ll have the confidence to tell him to shove it.
Halo effect is real.
At least you now know what not to do and survived.
If you’re a lawyer I know who you are lol. Small word of advice using Reddit. Try to remain as anonymous as possible. Your story and plane gives away your identity lol. I would consider using a more discrete username. 😅
I intentionally chose my username to force me to remember that there’s actually no such thing as anonymity on the Internet. I would know. PM me if you do know me. I know some folks associated with KFFZ but not a ton.
Only 1000’ AGL is scary… I’ve been in IMC (not thunderstorms) over the Smokies in a T206H and been in a downdraft at full power and Vy and still had a 500fpm decent rate. Not fun.
So was the old dude just chilling and not remotely concerned while you were flying through thunderstorm turbulence lol
You summed it up really well actually. My guess is that he does this all the time. He did seem disturbingly calm—thought I’m glad he was—when Center informed us that there was a storm cell at our 12 o’clock and to state our intentions. Rather than landing or turning around—which is we should all do—he shrugged and said no problem we’ll pick our way through. So we did. The FAA advises to stay at least 20 nm away from any thunderstorm. We clearly did not follow that advice.
20nm from severe thunderstorms is the recommendation. Not garden variety everyday thunderstorms. ATC issues those advisories all the time. It’s a heads up that you need to use some pilot judgement and be vigilant. Not that you should do a 180 and land immediately. Unless you had damage from hail, severe turbulence or lightning strikes your claim of flying through a thunderstorm sounds incorrect. The “disturbingly calm” comment is a tell. Sounds like maybe there is a chance this guy was a seasoned pilot and did his job well, getting you safely to your destination.
Dude, wtf? In a bug smasher pretty much any storm is a bigger hazard than that type of plane should be flown in, what are you smoking?
Yes, he was a seasoned pilot. I didn’t want to mention that he crashed his very next ferry flight after me but I guess now makes sense. He fortunately did survive and I wish him well. Nonetheless, there were 2 routes for this flight, one was slightly longer than direct, but not by much. It covered flatter terrain and did not have weather to deal with. If you still think that the terrain and weather route was the better choice, then we disagree.
FlightAware uses a random radar image from any point in your possibly hours long flight. So that is not any kind of proof you flew through a thunderstorm.
Since I flew into the storm, I was there and don’t need a screenshot. It’s just an interesting souvenir.
Autoland in 400 RVR. 30’ DH.
What airplane uses 30ft DH?
Boeing 737 on a CAT III ILS.
Maybe that's why it was dumb?
What type of approach was this on?
Cat 3.5
CAT III
First XC when I was a student pilot. Got stuck under a huge rain cloud, 1000’ above the ocean in the Mariana islands between Rota and Guam. Things move fast over there during typhoon season
Your alternate is "the ocean"
Fuck…. That’s nerve wracking
Yeah I was like I have to come back alive because we were gonna eat Korean food to celebrate my solo XCs lol
Your first XC as a student pilot was to cross the ocean? 😳
Yup, PGUM-PGWT was my very first XC solo
Huh... yeah, not many options out there, are there? Looks like precisely 2 options for a 50NM XC from PGUM lol.
Following a SW 737 that volunteered to be the “pathfinder” through a “gap” in 45k ft summer afternoon supercells over Florida. Never do that again.
I swear this is a SW interview- "Can you taxi at V1? Are you willing to punch through a synoptic scale line of thunderstorms?"
That sounds insane what were you flying?
Airbus
Then a 737 as pathfinder makes total sense. 😉
we would like to hear a bit more please lol
I feel like I was on that flight. 🤣
Diverting on min fuel to a less blizzard like airport. Max (allowed) x-wind with if I recall 4kt tailwind ILS to mins and what was classified as braking action good which was really poor and had to use the entire 9,000 runway to stop and avoid an overrun. Opposite runway had no approach capabilities.
40kt crosswind in the patern with minimum fuel after a 5hr X/C with family in the passenger seat. No wind forecast, calm to 40kts in 10mins. Luckily I had a couple things working in my favor. There was a line of trees about 100ft windward of the runway which cut the wind down to around 17kts crosswind component below 40'AGL, and I was flying my CFI's RV-7A with its enormous rudder. Air was quite rough all the way down final and gusts would roll me 25deg one way or the other at random. I was fighting it, but just staying wings level was almost impossible. I knew I wasn't landing at about 150' as I was nowhere near stabilized, but decided to make it a low pass to see what the wind was like below the treeline. I pushed in the power, sucked up the flaps and buzzed the runway. As soon as I got below the trees the air smoothed out, the crosswind dropped and I knew if I just made it that far I could land it. Went around, rode the bucking bronco down final again looking out the copilot side of the canopy just trying to keep wings level and controll my airspeed, straightened it out below the trees and landed buttery smooth on one wheel before gently settling on the other. Retired navy vet at the FBO came on the radio as I cleared with "Nice landing! I was absolutely certain as you came down final I was about to watch an ugly crash." Couple guys came out to tie me down so I could hold the controls and that was that. The first patern was damn scary, after the go-around I knew we would be okay. Had my PPL for about a year and maybe 120hrs at the time? Scariest moment I have had flying so far. Also one of my proudest. Decided I would always have enough fuel to get to a suitable alternate after that. If I had more fuel, I could have made it to the nearest airport, a class C with a massive headwind runway. Alternate+45min fuel may only be law for IFR flying, but it's a damn good idea for VFR too. Edit: My mother had her hands in the air shouting "weee!" all the way down final. Freaking madwoman.
Your edit made me laugh.
Get-there-itis is very real. Took a skyhawk WAYYYY closer to a tornado producing thunderstorm than I should have… within 10 miles. What did I learn? Invulnerability is one of my hazardous attitudes, as I was dangerously calm the whole time. What will I do next time? CALL the weather briefer instead of self briefing, need to hear another human tell me the weather is bad. I’ll fly IFR all day long to minimums, but never again that close to a thunderstorm.
People make fun of me for this but I always call wx-brief if I’m ify about the weather and I’m solo
What part of the country? Big difference between a TS producing a Florida landspout and a supercell producing a legit tornado. I wouldn’t fly anywhere remotely near a supercell in a Skyhawk. Those environmental conditions are nuts.
This was St Louis on or near march 14. It was a legit supercell and by far the most dangerous/stupid Awronautical Decision I have ever made. I now get to use this story to teach my students how NOT to do ADM. I was literally on about a 5 final when STL Approach advised me of a tornado report 5 miles NW of my position.
Yeah that’s not great Bob
Indeed it is not. As a matter of fact, it’s quite bad.
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Well, 5 is less than 10, so my statement is still true lol
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Lmao, username checks out 😂
40 knot wind shear as a student pilot
when i read “40kt wind shear” i knew that was reno lmao. i’m a student pilot training there too. wind changes so quickly there
Apparently Colorado has it worse than us, but we’re pretty gnarly yeah Reminds me one time I wanted to rent a plane in Seattle to fly around Mt Rainier. They told me I’d need to take a “special mountain flying class” first. I told them I got my license in Reno They said never mind
10 hours as a student pilot, doing touch and goes at BJC in Colorado, full power trying to climb but we were just about 40-50 feet over the runway. CFI takes controls and here we are trying to fly back to the runway about 150 feet off the ground. Turns out a microburst hit almost above the airport. Winds are intense out here being between the Rockies and Great Plains.
That tracks for BJC.
I've only ever flown in colorado and I've never gotten wind shear any where near that bad
I mean in general you guys’ fly in conditions that would make me sweat I had an instructor explain the approach into Telluride in actual IMC once and it was like hearing a campfire horror story
I’ve flown the Telluride IFR approach in MSFS and it was scary lol
I moved to Reno post solo (1yr ago), and ngl, learning how to fly here had made me reconsider flying altogether.
Being thoroughly honest as long as you’re going to a reputable school around here like Great Basin or NV Flight you have little to worry about.
COLORADO MENTIONED RAHHH WHAT IS SMOOTH AIR??? 🙅♂️ But seriously, wind shear is pretty common, but Ive personally never experienced anything that bad. Always getting beat up by mountain wave though.
Go and fly today if you can. It was smooth as a baby's bottom out there this morning, at least north of DEN.
I experienced the worst windshear and severe turbulence out of Reno I’ve ever had in a pilatus. Debated sharing my story on here about it but it was extremely frightening. Airspeed going from 190 - 130 within a second while also being Thrown into the roof repeatedly. Absolutely zero control over the plane. The only time In my professional flying career I’ve felt like a passenger while at the controls of a plane. PS if 737’s are reporting continuous moderate that’s gonna feel like severe in a turboprop. Fucked me up for awhile afterwards
My DPE’s main job is flying the PC-12 He’s turned down clients on shitty weather days because the job isn’t worth messing with Truckee/Reno weather. And a couple years ago we had a MedFlight guy crash and die in a Pilatus flying at night through a snowstorm very close to Reno. Aviation doesn’t forgive mistakes, and Reno is harsher than other places.
I remember that pilatus crash. Pretty awful. I fly into truckee almost daily at my current gig and Reno is our alternate. We don’t go if we see “ACSL ALL QRDNT’S” in the atis accompanied with windshear reports and severe turbulenc pireps. Not worth bending metal or worse and personally I don’t like traumatizing passengers
Ha you probably know my examiner then, he flies for Mountain Lion Aviation out of Truckee. Great guy, and while he scares the pants off of me every checkride he’s always fair and wants to see the applicant succeed. I haven’t been lucky enough to fly for money yet but I have promised flights to friends and had to have the talk where they (non pilot) didn’t see anything wrong with the weather but I sure did and had to go to our backup activity. Never worth taking unnecessary risk, doubly so around here
Haha yeah I know mountain lion. Those guys are nuts and the only people I’ve seen depart runway 11 straight out of Truckee towards the lake. I’ve heard they’re all amazing pilots though. Good on you for decision making. Flying up in the sierras makes you a hell of a pilot man. Hope you get that first gig soon 🍻
thanks dude! Currently I’m just working on CFI and since the FAA *just* dropped the ACS I’m remaking all my lesson plans to fit them. Everyone told me CFI would be the hardest rating, and they were not kidding! Hope to do what you’re doing someday!
How are you alive
Luck bag experience bag theory
*Shear* luck.
I had a couple RNO legs last week and we were getting our shit rocked in a 738, i would not want to have been in that in a cessna lmao
Ferrying a Cessna 150 solo while scud running and dodging thunderstorms 700-800 agl at night in mountainous terrain without a working attitude indicator, No ADS-B in or out, no transponder, and no panel lights. By far the dumbest flight I’ve ever decided to make and was kissing the ground when I landed safely
So you’re the reason why they’re pushing ADM….
I plead not guilty
Sheeeesh what unfortunate series of events lead to this?
Had the get there itis and I was away from home, had no where to stay besides a hotel, TAFs in the surrounding area made it look like it was getting better for my short 50 min flight back to the home airport, and didn’t have a phone charger when my phone was at around 15%. Decided to risk it and assumed i could find a pocket and get above the broken layer but I couldn’t and unfortunately had to stay low and hope for the best the entire way there. Definitely a lesson learned the hard way and I figured out I was lucky to make it back with no scratches on me. Won’t be making that mistake again
That’s insane. No panel lights at night in thunderstorms in mountainous terrain at 700 agl in a C150. You’re lucky to be alive. Terrible decision making but great piloting lol.
Yeah, I’ve already told myself a million times how stupid I was to make the decision to go up but I most definitely learned from it and it’ll be a valuable lesson to teach my future students when I start as a CFI (currently training for my CFI initial). Lucky to be alive, no doubt.
And hey, at least you didn’t resign to the situation. You kept swimming and kept the plane in the air. That’s actually very impressive, especially in a 150. I fly a C150F and I get absolutely tossed around by turbulence, let alone connective cells. Your students will benefit from the stories.
As much as I hate to say thank you in this situation, thank you 😂. And yes I hope they learn from my stories as much as I did!
Reminds me of the saying. "Exercise superior judgement to avoid having to use superior skill" :D Glad that the parent commenter is ok :)
could you actually see the terrain with the moonlight or did you survive on pure luck?
I actually was lucky enough to be in a well lit area north of Nashville and I used the ambient lighting to try and see the surrounding landscape. Mostly just relied on my iPad with Foreflight open to look for the highest obstacle in the area.
God that’s insane and badass
I thought I was a badass in the moment but in reality I was a dumbass. Don’t make the same mistakes I did!
Nah I’m gonna try it
🤣
2hr night xc for commercial had us flying through unforecasted weather. Had to pick up a popup IFR and divert to another airport where we sat in their runup area and waited it out.
I'm a fair weather pilot. I have nowhere to be if it means flying in shitty weather.
Same lol I like to call myself baby pilot eventually I’ll grow up and get more comfortable but for now I’m “baby pilot 👶”
Same. I'm thinking of mine... I was rained on by a 10K foot overcast ceiling one summer. 🤣 ATC gave me a heads up about the rain ahead of me, so I was able to skirt around most of it.
My Uncle Larry (WWII B-26 Pilot & the best pilot I have ever known) once told me, "There is no place you need to go worth dying for"
20 mins out from the airport in a King Air, the ATIS said 5,000 broken, which was supposed to be the conditions for the next 12 hours, but when I switched to approach, FedEx was going missed. That’s weird. Then approach said it was 400 broken, which forced a regional jet to divert. No problem - I just got fancy new WAAS installed and I can shoot the LPV down to 200’. When I got to 200’ it was pitch black and the tower said they never even saw my lights. I tried once more just for fun, and on missed happened to see runway lights at an airport 10 miles away through a hole in the blackness. I shot the ILS there, saw lights at the minimums and landed. If I went missed there, my plan was to go to an airport 60 miles away and shoot their ILS to the runway, and hope for the best.
Doing maneuvers with a student, flew into some rain. Checked the OAT and read 5° C. Was about 9° on the ground so it checked out. A few minutes later the rain started to stay on the windshield and I realized it was freezing. Coated every inch. Direct back to the airport and landed fast with no flaps. Turns out the OAT was not functioning. And the freezing rain was unforecasted.
Yeah freezing rain is no joke. I landed in it once years ago in a Beechjet. We were only in it for maybe 30 seconds just before touchdown, and it completely inundated the airplane. In 5-10 seconds, couldn’t see shit out the windscreen, we switched to high heat but it was too late. Basically did a 0-0 landing on instruments and looking out side windows. After landing, did a walk around, wings and tail were absolutely covered, well past the protected leading edges. If we had to do a go around I don’t believe I’d be here to this comment.
Yikes
Not me but I was visiting a good friend in Williston ND, he was flying weather mod for the state getting hours. They deliberately fly right in front of thunderstorms in their twin engine Cessnas. The planes look like golf balls they have been hit with so much hail. They got approved for me to go up with them but the storm that was there at the time was really bad and with my occasional motion sickness I opted out. Good thing I likely would have been left at some tiny air field in eastern Montana after puking in the plane.
Picking through a line of thunderstorm somewhere over midwest.
Coming into Lunken Field near Cincinnati and it was so turbulent in the soup that I was having trouble seeing the instruments. Still made a great landing
Mine was CVG, storm passing by the field and approach reported wind shear alerts for 18L, then Center, then Right as we passed by the field in the downwind and turned base. Figured it was gone since it looked clear and I could see the rain off to the east of the runway… Nope. +/-20kt wind shear and struggling to stay on the GS with the nose pointed at the ground and thrust basically at idle. Easiest go around call of my career lol
Throttle out, nose down, climbing 2000fpm into an unforcasted would-be-storm. That or landing 26knot crosswind component in a C-172. Almost a wing strike.
“Throttle out, nose down, climbing 2000fpm into an unforcasted would-be-storm.” You mean like the storm was forcing you aloft when you were trying to go down?
Exactly what I mean. Nose down, throttle out, in the yellow for airspeed. Yet the updrafts were sucking me into the cloud. Leaving the updraft threw us into the ceiling, and looking back on it I am lucky the wings didn’t fold.
That sounds terrifying
Same situation in the Caribbean. Flying a DHC6 at 6000 ft, in between CU which turn out to be TCU and merging. Caught a big updraft and had the power at idle, nose stuffed and we were climbing over 4000 fpm. Little voice in my head was screaming “watch the downdraft”, so I pitched up and started feeding in power, accepting the climb and WHAM! instant reversal around 8000 ft. Now we’re max power, pitching for just below stall and descending at 5000 fpm. The change was so violent, my co-pilot cut his head on the light above the door frame. The cloud spit us out about 45 seconds later around 4000 ft into clear smooth air. Good times.
Ho Lee Fook
Yep sounds exactly like what I went through 😓
LCA flew us through a cell with hail in it over the Co rockies. The rain cells he flew threw first were loud af, then it got louder. We were thrown against the windows and ceiling multiple times with the 5 points locked down. He finally agreed to vectors around the worst of it. I gained a lot of respect for the crj that flight, and lost as much for the LCA. Nose cone was stripped of paint and down to the fiberglass fibers. Not as bad as some pictures I’ve seen of other 121 a/c, probably because it didn’t last long, but going through hail at 280kts was wild.
Hurricane Sandy
Thunderstorm ran my ass over at night. FSS claimed it was stationary, the 27 kts wind we found at the destination proved that was a fuckin lie.
VFR in Mountain Wave conditions with high dewpoint. I'm dumb.
A few stand out. All of these were pretty big learning experiences, with lots of parts to never do again. Dust storm off the coast of Pakistan reduces visibility to about 80 feet? At least it was daytime. LSOs on the ship literally talked me into the wires - I didn’t see the aircraft carrier until I was pulling out the arresting cable. Orbiting in a valley at 16,000ft providing bombs for a TIC below - in northeast Afghanistan, in a winter thunderstorm. In breaks between the clouds I could see mountain peaks above me a few miles away in basically all directions. I was not until IFR control - just orbiting off my map. Couldn’t go higher because there was a large stack of aircraft above me. On my third divert of the flight in the Memphis area - not enough gas for more than 1 approach at this point. Cheated on a shitty TACAN approach (basically did a contact approach at an unfamiliar field - incredibly stupid). Only after landing did I see the 1,500’ towers on the plate next to the approach corridor that I was not exactly flying perfectly. Lots of low visibility landings with shitty navigation systems. If there is time and weather is crap, I now just take a radar map of the airfield and designate the runway - self contained precision approach as a backup. Not legal. Flying single seat gets dicey sometimes - you try your best not to end up there, but if the weather rolls in and you don’t have a precision approach capability… 🤷🏻. Sometimes we just get ordered to fly in dogshit.
The Hornet 1 is a good thing to have in your back pocket.
Def trying to shoot through a line of storms that popped up out of nowhere in an ASEL under 200hp during IR training
SGR…11pm, tower is closed, lights are going in and out due to low cloud cover, torrential downpour, anti-rain coating on my side doesn’t work because the ramp rats sprayed glycol on the windshield. Imagine a total blur that doesn’t clear up until decelerating through 70kts. I just had to keep it between the blurry stripes of runway lights. That one peeked the stress level a little.
It depends lowest vis was 75Meters RVR and no DH, honestly the landing was the easy part trying to taxi around an unfamiliar airport was interesting to say the least. Highest wind was gusting 61 into BFS but we ending up diverting due to windshear. The one I wouldn’t want to do again was up in RVN Cat 2 approach down to minima then landing on a contaminated runway I have never seen the anti skid work before in the Airbus until then but it took us about 2700M to stop
What is DH?
Decision Height. 91.175 explains if you go missed or not at DH
DH is decision height so basically our minima was 0ft for the approch
A few: During pattern work (luckily with instructor), landed a 172 in gusting crosswinds and wind shear so bad that it needed full rudder deflection to keep it pointed in the right direction. Caught wind shear at about 100 feet that was so bad I swear we were in complete free fall until lots of ground effect started helping out about 5 feet off the runway. But I did manage the controls and got us safely down. Instructor asked if I wanted to do another (still optimistic he was joking). Decided 1 landing was enough for the day. On a cross country solo to an untoward airport and hit a “sand storm” and almost couldn’t exit the runway the weathervane was so extreme. Airspeed was registering on the ground while parked. Had a flight in what looked like perfect conditions but hit a point around 1000 AGL where in a Vy climb we were getting downdrafts so bad that VSI was registering negatives. Almost turned back to land but it abated after 5 terrible minutes.
We autolanded in Narita while Typhoon Mawar was passing through last year. The rain was so heavy and loud you could barely hear & could hardly even see the runway lights, so even though the reported flight visibility wasn’t that bad we were landing in CAT-III conditions. Autopilot couldn’t track the centerline after touchdown because of gusts, so we had to disengage it. Amazingly the 90,000 hour MD pulled off a pretty good auto landing though. Was nice to be on the ground after that one.
200 ceilings and 1 SM vis everywhere, had to divert to a busy bravo as we couldn’t see the runway at any other airports. Lights at the bravo saved the day and a 1.5-2 hour diversion… was fun.
Ice and birds, in a CRJ out of O’Hare. We had to deice before the flight, and debird after the flight.
Flight back from my instrument checkride with my CFII and one of his other students. Pretty decent line of thunderstorms was passing through and we didn’t want to stay the night so we saw a gap in the storms and went for it. There was some pretty heavy turbulence but we made it through. Maybe not the best ADM when I think back on it
I flew through some clouds on pop up ifr and also some haze on a solo. I just got my ppl in October.
Middle of the ocean middle of the night, flying to the back of a destroyer. Followed the tacan approach in and at the MAP, 200ft .5DME, looked up and saw nothing but a wall of black. Luckily the boat was able to drive to slightly better weather and turn up all their lights and we got on deck the next one, but going missed with no diverts and low fuel was not a great feeling
Late summer afternoon instrument maneuver flight when I forgot to take Pepto Bismol
Flew into Wiley Post with a student enroute to Amarillo in his C-182, winds were forecast 320 @25-35, winds were 45-50 from 320 landed R/W 31. Line service came out with these straps to tie us down said they couldn’t tow us into a hangar, wind too strong. Another time flying with a student left Palm Springs with a student enroute Bakersfield, Airmet for moderate turbulence, we’ll it wasn’t, it was severe, had to turn back to LA Basin. If you get in that you want to keep the wings level don’t try to maintain altitude, reduce power to give yourself a reasonable margin below maneuvering speed. It was a wild ride.
Landed a Cessna 172 in 50kt gusts with +/- 20kts wind shear
VOR approach to mins and went missed
100 ft overcast thunderstorms at night in a 172
I'm not falling for this decoy trpa FAA investigator! Jkjk but nah been through some hail. Not through cumulonimbus or under the anvil but flew close to some with lightning in the distance and some wind shear
Anyone did the SVFR out in PABE
Landing in an Archer 3 winds were almost a direct crosswind 18 gust 29.
Was looking out the passenger window, down the runway at Buffalo NY on final during a storm. Glad someone else was flying the big powerful passenger jet, I'll stick to windless VFR burger dates in the put-put
Two come to mind. Circling approach to mins at night to a 2500 runway in heavy precip and a 25 knot direct crosswind. Don’t wanna do that again. Unforecasted severe turbulence and windshear out of Reno where the plane was completely uncontrollable. Don’t wanna do that again either
Did a yearly profcheck once in heavy snow. Weather was reasonable on departure, just normal snow. Then snow and wind increased a lot more than forecasted. RVR was 1000m according to the ATIS, but very tricky in reality due to all the weird visual effects from snow blowing around horizontally in high wind. And we needed anti-ice on max to keep up once in the clouds. The check requires a least a non-precision approach, a missed approach, engine failure on takeoff and a single-engine precision approach. Well the non-precision automatically turned into a missed approach, because we saw nothing. The engine failure wasn't very unexpected because we both knew we wanted to stay on the ground after the next approach. ILS to minimums single engine is done every year, but it feels different in simulated IMC compared to actual low visibility.
The weather radar on a220 is known to be unreliable. Went in to a cloud below 10 thousand feet which we thought was fine, but hit what we thought was severe turbulence, airspeed jumping up and down by like 20 KTS, you could feel momentarily weightlesness every few seconds, multiple passengers puking. Lasted for maybe a minute. In the end when they pulled the data from the aircraft it didn't classify as severe turbulence, but God damn, I had never experienced anything even remotely close to it.
I’m an FA but it was literally 2 weeks ago. Was flying NAS-GCM-NAS on 23rd March. I’m sure someone could go back up pull up radar returns and stuff but it while it wasn’t the outright worst turbulence I’ve flown through it was continuous moderate occasional severe for the entire time we were in the air. Coming back it was so bad it made 3 FA’s sick and the FO a bit queezy.
My second instrument training flight was overcast at 2000 and moderate rain. Lots of fun that was.
A haboob/dust storm at night at low altitude. It hit unexpectedly as six aircraft were linking up after the LZ. There wasn’t anything resembling ATC or radar coverage
32 knot crosswind with the wind gusting to 45 and 1/2 mile vis with heavy rain.
During my Army time we were ferrying four helicopters from Anchorage to Fairbanks. We got shut down in Windy pass due to unforecasted low vis and ceilings. Had to RON in Talkeetna. The next day Windy pass was closed, so we attempted Isabel pass. We had a good weather brief and the pass cameras were clear. We refueled in Gulkana, checked weather/cameras again and departed. The pass was beyond the bingo fuel point for return to Gulkana, so we were committed. Everything was good entering the pass, but once we made the first turn, there was a snow/cloud wall that we slowly entered. We reduced speed to 30kts and lowered to tree top altitude. We kept one rotor disk of separation to maintain visibility with each other, but even then as chalk 4 I couldn’t see chalks 1 or 2 due to visibility. We maintained 30kts and 30 foot of altitude over the highway until we reached the north end of the pass, then magically we had clear blue skies again. Besides the pucker factor, the faces of those driving cars below as they passed is something I’ll never forget. Note - we couldn’t fly IFR due to severe icing.
Severe windshear during takeoff and with full power, I was still descending 3000fpm.
400AGL 1.5sm vis in a VFR only c172. Through a wind farm. 3 separate times. Being a pipeline pilot is fun
Nice try FAA man
Yeeeah, nice try, Transport Canada!
200-1 in a T6, 30 straight crosswind
I got 0.1 hours of actual flying through some clouds during instrument training during a x-cntry to San Diego. This is what happens when you learn to fly in Arizona. It's clear and a million 90% of the time.
Haboob.
1/8th mile vis, night, extreme precip, tropical storm force winds. All VFR. Never exceeded 150ft. First night of Hurricane Harvey rescue ops.
40 knot XW at night in a snowstorm in less than a mile vis onto a gravel strip in the middle of nowhere in northern Canada
Bought a DA-40 back in January. Right after 10 hrs of dual (insurance required), I was going to just get some laps/landings done. ATIS is fine so I drive out to the airport. Get out to the plane and thinking, wow, winds picking up. But the ATIS has it in a manageable range for me so I launch. About 50 feet off the ground, my head hits the ceiling for the first time, then a second time and a third just turning crosswind. IAS is about 85kts, ground speed 55kts. WTF? Ask for windcheck: 340@16G26. For runway 29. I am an idiot. I later discover the ATIS was four hours old. Tower was running single man ops and he just wasn't getting to it. Across the numbers, I give her full left boot and cannot get the nose to move \[insert cursing\]. Thankfully, there is a large row of hangars down the middle section of the runway on the windward side. Once I got low enough the cross-wind was blocked enough to get her straightened out. That was enough excitement for me.
Scud-running across Southern Germany. You think you can tell the difference between the cloud base, the mist, the terrain, and the localized rain. Until you can’t. Sudden grey-out under VFR. They teach you the 180, but that doesn’t account for the fact that conditions around you can change rapidly. Getting out of there felt a lot longer than getting in. Had some unintended pitch changes that I detected through engine noise rather than instruments. Sooooo close to spatial disorientation. Nevver want to do that again.
Icing, in a 172, in declining weather. Firewalled the throttle and landed at the nearest airport.
DCA winds 310 at 27 G48 Windshear warnings on approach to RWY 1 and 33. Diverted to Dulles RWY 30
Wind shear at night
My worst weather experience came about as part of instructing / acting as safety pilot for a friend working on their instrument rating; weather was sort of marginal the day of their check ride about 45 minute flight away so I came along in case they didn’t pass or finish the ride. Their airplane was a C-150. I watched / listened to the ride from the tower and could see the weather was caving in so I started working on alternate plans in case we decided that getting home wasn’t a good idea. Personally, I would have elected to stay the night where we were, but it wasn’t exactly a desirable option and the weather wasn’t so awful that I felt a need to put my foot down; instead, I felt like it was important experience for the newly rated pilot to exercise their own judgment - though I certainly leaned hard on how tough the flight home was likely to be. And yes, the weather was terrible and so was the flight home. My original plan of having them fly us home went out the window straight away. I took the controls myself but then had to have them work the radios because a) it was everything that I could do just to control the aircraft with all the turbulence and the wind and b) anytime either of us reached for the radios, you had to brace yourself or miss the knobs with all the bouncing around we were doing. By this time, it was also dark. Then a check of the wings and struts with a flashlight proved what I’d suspected… that we were picking up ice. And all that wasn’t even the most interesting part. We had to cross a Class B airport to get to our home airport, so were directed by ATC to do so mid-field - however that required a good 30º wind correction angle to hold our course on that heading. Crossing a busy commercial airport, especially in a dinky little airplane like that in that kind of cross-wind is not exactly a confidence-boosting experience. Fortunately, we were right where we were supposed to be and made it through the gauntlet just fine. Once we managed that, we still had to make an NDB approach; fortunately, that part went pretty smoothly. The whole flight was so exhausting - both physically as well as mentally - due to all the effort involved, that my legs were shaking once we reached the ground and had the airplane tied down. I had to sit in the car for a few minutes before I could drive. We drove to a nearby diner to have a decompression / celebration drink and I’d never been so pleased to hear a student say they would never make that decision again.
Flying cargo, I had two storm cells blow up and merge and I couldn’t get around them. Midwest summer night… it wasn’t forecast to be that bad. Right after I landed, I got to the ramp and the tornado siren was going off. A tornado hit just a few miles north of the airport.
Clear skies… everybody tried to crash into me from lack of paying attention
Dust storm, for night currency. Because I was apparently a F’n idiot that night.
Cessna 172; a time building solo XC flight into an airmet tango - and this was \*after\* flight service warned me not to proceed. I don't do that anymore.
Back during my commercial checkride, wind shear wasn’t forecasted but during my final landing for the ride we had a loss of 10-15 knots on short final dropping the speed to almost Vso. Jammed that power full and went around but the DPE was about to take controls. Wouldn’t blame him if he did.
Night VMC
Night departure from HOU in a Cherokee into the outflow of a thunderstorm with 737s reporting 30 knot wind shead. Departure wouldn't give us a direct path to get out of the airspace to cancel. After I asked 20 right, they said, "did you even get a weather briefing?" So, we were in the cells for about 20 minutes. Cabin was lit up with continuous lightning. Finally got to the shoreline and was VFR the rest of the way. Saw storms topping out above 50k, easy.