I once read a story by Frederick Forsyth called The Shepard. It's a fictional story about an RAF pilot who has all of his instruments fail and is shepherded home by a ghost pilot. What happened to me in the summer of 2016 reminded me of this story, though what happened to me was very real.
It was a hot night in July, and I was flying home from North Philadelphia Airport to St Louis's Spirit of St Louis Airport (SUS). Along the route were three lines of thunderstorms. Thunderstorms in the Midwest are pretty common and I had been spending many a night lately dodging these towering cumulonimbus beasts. I was flying alone in a Fairchild Metroliner, with a radar that was somewhat less than functional. Luckily there was a full moon, which does a lot to help light up the clouds before you get to them, helping you see and avoid them. The first line of weather had large openings between the cells, and with the lightning in the cloud lighting it from the inside, avoiding each cell was easy. The view was actually quite spectacular.ATC was very cooperative, letting me deviate any which way.
Nearing the halfway point of my journey home, with about an hour and a half still to go, I could see a large line of thunderstorms ahead of me. This unbroken line of clouds stretched from as far as I could see to the left and to the right, and everything in between was flashing almost continuously with in-cloud lightning. Big lightning. I got switched to a different center frequency and checked in, but the controller didn't answer. He was quite busy with the likes of UPS and FedEx who at this late hour were trying to find their way through the same weather to their own destinations. I called two more times, but still no answer. Now, not a lot of people fly around at 16,000' late at night. Most airliners fly much higher and most smaller types were probably home in bed, so I was pretty much by myself out here at this altitude. I finally decided to just pick my way through and figured ATC would get around to me eventually. I turned left and flew parallel to the line of menacing weather. This did not look good! There didn't appear to be a way through anywhere, and I didn't have enough fuel to deviate too far. Then I noticed this one small area that seemed to not have any lightning. It wasn't clear, for I couldn't see any ground lights, and there were large lightning flashes in the towering clouds on either side. It seemed risky, but I didn't seem to have a lot of options. Just then I saw a plane ahead of me. He appeared to be fairly close, I could easily make out his lights and a dark shape. He was flying parallel to the weather like me. As I studied this nearby stranger, he suddenly turned west towards the area I had been looking at. Well shoot, I thought, I'll bet he has a better radar than mine, that's for sure. I glanced again at my own radar, an old set of dubious vintage. It's green line swinging merrily left and right, oblivious to the raging line of weather nearby. As the stranger turned west I made a "command decision" to follow him. A command decision is when you are faced with a choice, A or B, left or right, this or that. You have to pick one so you consider your options and choose. That's a command decision. Right or wrong, it's what you're doing. I turned with him and kept a close eye on him, watching his every move. We occasionally went through some wisps of clouds, yet the ride was quite smooth. Close aboard on either side the huge thunderstorms flashed brightly with the lightning inside of them. I tried not to think about it. I glanced at my instruments while intently keeping an eye on the guide just ahead and to my left. ATC was still crazy busy with other planes. I peered ahead for any bad weather that might appear, never letting the guide out of my sight. Despite all this violence around me, it was surprisingly smooth. The guide was always there, close but steady on his course. Suddenly we went through one last brief piece of cloud and poof! We were on the other side, ground lights visible for fifty miles all ahead! I glanced behind me at the line of thunderstorms raging on, then right back to the guide plane. And just that quick, he was gone. One moment he was right there ahead and to my left, and the next moment, nothing. I looked all over, wondering where he went. The sky was clear, his strobe lights should have been clearly visible for a miles. I searched up, down, all around, but he was nowhere to be seen. Just then ATC called me. "744, sorry about that, I was pretty busy. Looks like you found your way through OK. Direct St Louis when able." To this day I wonder who that was. Was it a real life Shepard, showing me the way through?
