Another one from the late Alec Caudell and propilotworld.com... one of my favorites. I have a healthy fear of thunderstorms-- I will let others do the learning for me!
The summer of thunderstorms part one.
One summer I was flown into thunderstorms four times by three different captains, all of them ex-military, a retired Air Force Colonel, a retired Air Force Major and a former World War Two Navy fighter/furloughed cargo airline captain. Three times were at high altitude in Jet Commanders and the fourth time in the mid-20s in a Merlin II. Two of these thunderstorm encounters happened on the same day, one at high altitude in a Jet Commander and the Merlin II in the mid-20s, flown by the same guy, the retired Air Force Colonel.
Surprisingly enough, at least to me anyway, I survived all four encounters. At least physically, not too sure about mentally. Hell, after that summer I didn’t want to fly in high cirrus clouds in the middle of winter. Talk about paranoid. But I finally got over it, but kept an extremely healthy respect for thunderstorms for the rest of my career.
The first time that summer.
As with most young pilots I was poor, stupid, way too smart for myself and bullet proof. Back then most of the PICs I flew with were former military pilots, guys that flew in World War Two and the Korean War. Being raised in the Air Force, my father being an Air Force pilot, I considered these guys Sky Gods. They had survived being way too smart for themselves, bullet proof and that was with people trying to shoot them down. Conveniently forgetting about all those Colonels, Majors and Navy fighter pilots that didn’t survive being way too smart for themselves and bullet proof.
Also being a young pilot, I was a whore for turbine/jet time. I’d fly with anybody, anywhere in jet aircraft, as long as they paid me of course. Whores don’t work for free you know, not even me. One day I get a phone call, would I be the co-pilot on a Jet Commander to ferry it to MEM for a new owner, with a stop off in Kansas to drop off a Lear Jet crew where they would pick up a Lear 23 that would ferry the Lear to MEM as well, then return home in a Merlin II? How much I reply, they reply standard rate, whatever that was back then, I reply where and when.
So a couple of days later I show up on the ramp there where some used Jet Commanders were sitting. I find the right one, do the exterior pre-flight and then walk into the FBO, check the weather and to see The Colonel to ask him how much fuel he wanted. Which was usually a wasted question, as his response was always the same, regardless of how many passengers or how far we were going, fill it up. I look at the girl behind the FBO counter that we were standing in front of, requested her to tell the line crew to tow the aircraft up front, top it off and for a power unit. Don’t bother to ask why The Colonel just didn’t tell her himself, it didn’t work that way with him. About that time the crew that were going to fly the Lear 23 show up, really good friends of mine, Laurel and Hardy, well that’s what I will call them for this story, as it fitted them to a ‘T’.
Pretty soon we get loaded up, with Laurel and Hardy in the back bitching about the catering, there was none, that it was too hot, it was too cold and asking when would we get there. In other words making appear that this was a normal trip with real passengers. Ignoring them, just as we would real passengers, we fire up and depart. In about an hour we land at the airport in Kansas where the Lear 23 was waiting for Laurel and Hardy. As we refuel and have the Lear 23 fueled, I check the weather again and I am told that there is a scattered line of thunderstorms that were building between us and MEM. But the guy at the Flight Service Station said that it looked like we could work our way through them or go on top as the max height of the storms were around 350 at the time. I dutifully inform The Colonel of this fact and then walk out and tell Laurel and Hardy the same. They file for 450 and The Colonel files for 350, hmm. Again I attempt to impress on him that the line of thunderstorms are building, like getting higher. He just nods at me, not even bothering to take his ever present cigar out of his mouth.
After both aircraft are refueled we taxi out first in the Jet Commander, the field was uncontrolled so the plan was to takeoff VFR, contact center and head to Memphis. As we are taxing out I hear the Lear going to near full power, then silence, again near full power, then silence. Then Laurel and Hardy call us on Unicom, they can’t get the parking brake to release and want us to wait. The Colonel does not like to wait, but he agrees to wait for five minutes and if they have not figured out to do something as simple as releasing the parking brake, they can either jump back in the Jet Commander or we’ll leave them. The Colonel places his left arm on the top of the instrument panel so he can watch his wristwatch, as when he says five minutes, he means five minutes, not four minutes and fifty nine seconds or five minutes and one second. At three minutes and ten seconds they call us and tell us that the parking brake is released and they are moving.
Now I failed to mention one thing, as usual in these old jets, which were not old back then, it was standard practice just to start the right engine to taxi out on and start the left engine just before you take the runway to takeoff. Today was no different, we had just started the right engine and taxied out. After we hear that they are moving The Colonel starts to pull out on the runway, without starting the left engine. Now usually I would not dare to attempt to criticize The Colonel, not only had CRM not been invented back then, it would have been unthinkable to The Colonel, old school you know. Never the less, I summed up enough courage to ask him if he would like to use both engines for this takeoff. He blinks a couple of times, looks at me and says, “Yeah, uh, why don’t you start that thing, probably would help.”
I’m pretty sure the left engine was up to speed when The Colonel went to full power on takeoff and off we were heading for Memphis and the building line of thunderstorms. As we get closer to the line of thunderstorms we go IMC. The radar is paining the line which is pretty solid by now, but the northern end of the line ends about 60 miles south of the Fayetteville VOR, but there was a single cell sitting right on top of the Fayetteville VOR, about forty miles in diameter. So there is about a 20 mile gap between the line and the Fayetteville VOR, but north of that there were no radar returns. So to me we have two choices, shoot through the 20 mile gap or go 60/70 miles north of the Fayetteville miss the whole mess, which was my preference. About then Laurel and Hardy calls, who are behind us calls me to tell me that their radar in out and asks me what we are painting. So I tell them what I am seeing on the radar and they decided to take the northern choice. A wise choice as it turned out, as soon they were on top at 450 in the clear for the rest of the way to Memphis. We were not so fortunate.
Now while all this was going on, The Colonel had just been sitting in the left seat, smoking his cigar, watching the autopilot fly the aircraft directly toward the Fayetteville VOR and the thunderstorm. Now I did mention that I thought that we had two options did I not? Well, The Colonel had a third, just keep going straight ahead. So, again being the dutiful co-pilot, I pointed out that there was a cell sitting on top of the VOR and pointed out the two options, suggesting the northern one. He looks at me, a bit surprised that I would actually talk to him without being addressed first, then looked down at the radar, messed with the intensity function, range, then the tilt on the radar then said, “We’ll be on top.” And went back to watching the autopilot.
We’re now coming up to about 80 miles from the VOR, about 20 miles from the cell that had grown wided to about 60 miles. At least what we are painting on the radar of the cell. I’m not all that sure that we will be over the top of the cell, not at from what I am seeing on the radar. So, again being the dutiful co-pilot, I tell him of my doubts, he looks back at the radar, which was on the 80 mile range setting, switches it to the 20 mile setting, tilts the radar dish up and sure enough, the cell we were painting goes away. “Yeah, we’ll top it.” Famous last words, well almost last words.
No more were those words out of his mouth when there was a brilliant flash of light on the left side of the aircraft, followed by a very loud explosion, then the left engine quits and rolls down below idle. We lose the left side of electrical power of the aircraft, including the pilot’s flight instruments and kicks the autopilot off, then we hit a brick wall,. To call the turbulence severe would be an understatement of Biblical proportion. The Colonel bites his cigar in two. I’d never seen anyone ever do that before. Now we are in severe turbulence, so severe that I cannot focus on any of my flight instruments that are still functioning and my head is hitting the top of the cockpit, the right engine is still at cruise power and we are in a rapid roll to the left, starting to descend.
There is a rocker switch on the overhead panel that transfer the power from the right side instrument to the left side. I decide that if there ever was a time to use that switch, it was now. The Colonel came to the same conclusion at the same time and yelled at me to push the power transfer switch, as the pulls the right engine back to idle. It was so turbulent that it took me four attempts before I could get my finger on that switch and push it, transferring the power to the left side. This was a mistake, a big mistake. For as soon as I managed push that rocker switch, I lost all power to my flight instruments on the right side.
IMC, in a thunderstorm, one engine out and now no flight instruments.
‘Now we’re in for it I thought’, but what I said was, “Now we’re fucked.” But wait, we had one of those new tiny standby, battery powered attitude indicators. In fact I think this was one of the, if not the first Jet Commanders I flown with this thing installed. We’re saved! So I start yelling, “The standby, the standby!” The Colonel looks at me as if I’d lost my mind, so I yell again and point at the standby attitude indicator that was mounted on the bottom of the pilot’s instrument panel by his right knee. We both look at it, it is showing a near 90 degree left bank with the nose dropping below the horizon. The Colonel starts to roll the wings level and applies back pressure on the yoke when the standby attitude indicator flips the other direction and the red off flag pops out.
About then Laurel and Hardy calls us, telling us that they are top at 450, can see the top of the cell over the VOR is above them and asks how our ride is. Thanks a lot, rub it in, at this point in time we are trying to figure out if we can get any power to any of the flight instruments, so I don’t have time to talk to anybody. The Colonel keeps pulling on the cage knob on the standby attitude indicator as if this would make it start working again. I decide to kill everything, I turn the working generator off, the avionics master off and then the batteries off. We are still getting the crap beat out of us and now things are flying all over the cockpit, including lose items like pens coming off the floor of the cockpit and landing on the overhead panel. No matter how tight I get my seatbelt, my head keeps hitting the overhear panel and this is really starting to piss me off. I turn the batteries back on, the get the right generator back on line then turn the avionics switch back on. My flight instruments come back for just a second and then fail again. I missed a step when I turned everything off, but didn’t realize it at the time. Which considering everything that was going on right then, could be forgiven.
When the radios came back up after I turned on the avionics switch I could hear the Center and Laurel and Hardy trying to call us. The Center controller had finally woken up, noticed that we were rapidly losing altitude and then lost our transponder. Laurel and Hardy were wanting to know who was going to buy the beer that night if we got killed. Always nice to know that one has good friends looking out for you. I really cannot remember just what I told center right then, something along the lines of ‘I’d talk to them when I had the chance, but was too busy right then’. Laurel and Hardy I ignored. The Colonel somehow managed to stick another cigar in his mouth, folded his arms and said, “Let me know if you see the ground before we hit it.” I remember that to this day very clearly. Nice reassurance I thought at the time.
It seemed like we were in the thunderstorm for at least an hour, getting thrown around the cockpit, getting the crap beat out of us and my head constantly hitting the overhead panel. From what Laurel and Hardy told us later it was for only about five minutes. My, how time flies when one is having fun. Then the clouds start to get lighter and the turbulence goes from severe to mild, to light. I catch something green in the corner of my eye, look up through the overhead cockpit window and see the ground, actually a forest. I yelled “I got it.”, I grabbed the yoke, roll the aircraft toward the opening in the clouds and then pull through the hole into open clear air.
I had never seen a more beautiful sight.