I could not be a storm chaser

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
A little while ago, while we had a nice strong storm over our area, I got on line and checked the weather radar from KMFD and found that we were smack dab in the middle of a nice red area...severe thunder storm! Cool! I fired up my sim, selected my A Number 1 favorite twin (FSDB's Lockheed Electra 10A) and set my sim to reflect real time and weather, then set my sim back to 100% realistic settings (was flying helos earlier and had to set the sim on Super Easy). I found that when you have 25 to 30 mile an hour wind gusts, your take off roll is much shorter than normal....my first take off came as a complete surprise and I nosed in. Second attempt was better....got into the air and instantly found myself flying pretty much sideways. Got the Electra under control and headed Southeast, chasing the worst part of the storm. And I caught up with it.....and found that flying in the heart of a severe thunderstorm is hard hard work. I have not had to work my stick so hard EVER! I was all over the place. My airspeed would go from 120, to 160, to 80, back to 140....I was going up, down, sideways, slantways. I hit the tilde key to bring up ATC and selected an airport in my general direction, about 10 miles out. Made it to the airport, approach was so so, but I THOUGHT I could make a landing.....and I was doing fine until I hit some strong cross wind. Right wing lifted, left wing dug in, plane spun and nosed in....BUt I was on the runway! I get points for that don't I?

OBIO

Oh, the lightning was amazing! Having flown CFS2 for a few years, I am still blown away by the effects in FS2004. Had some really cool streak lighting, where the lighting looked like it was shooting across a huge swath of sky instead of toward the ground.
 
Nothing wrong with chasing tornados or hurricanes. you just have to give mother nature all you got and stay on top and a step ahead all times or she'll pounce on you and rip your wings to shreads. I chase every known WX system in the book daily. Practice Practice and make sure you have the proper AC. As for Helos use CG type.
 
I've had two tornados that chased me. The first one there I was 50ft up in an A frame 350 ton electric crane mounted on rail road tracks atop an 80ft building. Was one October night just after a small storm had passed. The cab was all glass on three sides with the back wall all metal. The brake on travel brake was a long heavy three foot long bar on the floor. The instant I first heard the tornado there was no wind but I could hear it. I immediately went to the ladder to come down but after stepping on the second rung of the 50 ft ladder the wind started and rose so fast (seconds) that I rushed back into the cab and hugged the steel wall and was standing with both feet on that big johnson bar brake. I thought this was going to be my last moments alive. I was mainly worried that the tornado was going to push the crane down the tracks and off the end of the 80ft high building. It didn't though. The box structure that seperated the two A frame legs of the crane was about 60ft x about 15ft high. Plenty surface area to play havoc in the well over 100mph winds, probably closing in on 200 mph. Luckily the tornado apparently did not fully hit my crane and was moving parallel down the side of the building and the tracks so the wind was mostly blowing across the tracks from the spiraling wind so as not to push the crane down the tracks. After the tornado passed I remained in the cab sitting silent watching the workers down on the deck of the building come out of hiding. After about 20 minutes one of them looked up and said "Hey that crane operators up there!" shortly the plant engineers appeared on deck and had the tracks cleared of debree and we took the crane back down to the other end of the building we dogged it off. As I climbed down the ladder a couple of the plant engineers made some jestures in light and I jokingly said to them "You can take this job and shove it, I ain't a workin here no more" Come morning, end of shift, out in the parking lot the next morning over 100 parked cars had ruined sand blasted windows. One full size HD pickup lay upside down and large pines snapped in half.

Second time I was at home in my house about mid day. I don't think it was too big of one. I recognized the sound. I knew what it was immediately, and went to open the front door to try to get an eye on the devil outside. With two hands I could only get the door open about an inch before I let go of it. The suction outside was that strong. I got the dog and high tailed it to the bedroom and tried to pull the matress over us just incase the house started to collapse in on us. But before I could get covered by it the wind subsided quickly. Again I caught the edge of a tornado. two houses away the only real damage was a house with a front porch peeled back over the top and several trees uprooted.

Tornados are fun to look at. That type of weather attracts me to the conditions, but if you ever get in one they have the uncanny ability to start a praying process. I still like to look at and witness all that power. From a safe enough distance.
 
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