Thunderstorms are a part of daily life in flying. Living in the Midwest we see plenty of them. Pretty to look at, easy to avoid. What I hate are scattered, small embedded thundertstorms. Not so easy to navigate around, especially at night. Sometimes you just need to be remotely near one to get slammed but good.
When I was flying organ transplant flights, we often flew from St Louis to Springfield MO. It's about an hour flight straight down I-44. Thunderstorms around here usually come up from Texas and Oklahoma, moving right along I-44. So we would often find ourselves flying alongside a long line of boomers. At night especially, it was quite a light show. One night we brought a body back (they'll use most of the organs). St Louis is one of the top transplant sites in the world. So we get this huge, obese body on board (which is why they are like they are. Overeating is a killer, friends). One of the nurses, who I know pretty well, just rolls her eyes as the doctor, a real prima dona, barks out orders. A real unlikable fellow. Maybe he's a good Christian who just lacks people skills. On the flight home I can hear him carrying on back there, so finally I beckon back to her and yell "I need you up here!" She comes up and I said "I thought you could use a break," then pointed out the fantastic light show taking place on our right. Her and Jeff and I, we watched it for a long time while Dr Bigfoot stewed in the back.
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| Rachel and me |
One day I was with my trusty copilot Rachel and we were flying empty back to Mt Vernon from Denver. Rachel was in the left seat and I was doing copilot duties. We'd been dodging thunderstorms all over Kansas and Missouri, and as we descended over St Louis there were a few small cells still about. One small red area appeared directly ahead, but I could see it was clear on the other side. As we passed through 20,000' at max velocity Rachel asks "Shouldn't we turn a little left and go around that?" "Oh no," I replied, "We're fine. It's small and its clear on the other side." We get closer. Again Rachel asks, "You know, we should probably ask for a turn to the left to go around this." "No, we're OK. See? It's small. Hey, turn on the nacelle heat, would ya?" Rachel begins looking around for the nacelle heat and that's when we entered it. Wham! WHAM! Suddenly we are getting thrown all around the cockpit despite being tightly buckled in. Arms and hands are just flying all over, bodies getting thrown left and right. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Anything not tied down is airborne in the cockpit. She's hanging on to the control wheel but neither of us can get a hand on the power levers. Finally we pop out the other side into clear air and the wildly violent ride stops. Now most people would be scared to death at this point, wide eyed and wishing they'd worn their brown pants. Not us. We couldn't stop laughing. Just couldn't stop laughing. We laugh at death! This is insane, but we can't even hardly talk we're laughing so hard. "See? I told you it was clear on the other side," I laughed. She's still laughing and says "There isn't any nacelle heat, is there?" "No, I made that up. I just wanted to get you mind off of that darn red cell."
