There’s a story David told me early on, before we’d actually met, about a turning point in his life. It was after a thunderstorm he experienced while flying to Ohio in 2001, a storm so intense he worried he might not make it through. David told the story to a few people, but I managed to find one instance where he’d written it down, in an e-mail, in June 2004.
I was flying from my home ‘port in the Poconos to Cincinnati, Ohio for a conference. I was going to receive an award I had been given, for education. Two other pilots were going to go with me, but they cancelled the morning of the trip. I decided to go anyway, even though it would mean flying alone in instrument weather, which is a heavier workload. I was flying a Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172, a little four-seat plane about the size and weight of a Volkswagen.
Across Pennsylvania as far as Pittsburgh was all grey clouds and light rain, I never once saw the ground after taking off. As I crossed into Ohio the clouds began to get darker, and the rain fell harder. The Cleveland center controller gave me some headings to steer to keep me out of the worst of the rain and lightning.
Fairly quickly the clouds went to a deep grey, and the rain even more intense. The windscreen was totally obsured by water, like being in a carwash, and the sound of the rain was like sizzling bacon – louder than the engine. The turbulence was so bad that the simple autopilot couldn’t keep me level, so I clicked it off and hand-flew the plane, trying to stay upright. I was thrown up and down hundreds of feet; the engine howled and sighed, as my airspeed went wildly up and down.
My hands still shake a little, thinking of this. The cockpit was near-dark, except for flashes of lightning; I had no outside reference at all, and the needles on all the gauges were leaping wildly around. The sizzling-bacon sound drowned everything out; I don’t remember hearing anything on the radio. I saw bits of ice in the torrent on the windshield. I waited for larger hail to collapse the plexiglass, or a downburst to carry me down to the ground.
But then it all began to ebb; and in a few moments more I shot out of the clouds into clear blue sky, on top of the familiar white quilt of cloud. I righted the plane, and out of curiosity I circled around to the left to see what I had emerged from.
It was a thunderstorm cloud, growing like a pillar out of the overcast it was embedded in. I was at 8,000 feet or so, and it went up to at least 35,000; seven miles or so. I felt like a fly buzzing around the ankle of a giant. Another pillar was a few miles on my left, I had apparently just skimmed the edge of this one. I flew on for another 45 minutes and landed at Blue Ash airport near Cincy, where the sun was drying out the pavement. On getting out, I saw aluminum showing through the front of the white wings; the rain and ice had blasted much of the paint off.
That was three years ago. It was an epiphany for me. I had been dealing with depression over my recent divorce; I was somewhat surprised by how amazing I felt that afternoon; I was really glad I hadn’t been killed, and somehow a lot of my troubles were washed away in that storm and never came back. Soon after I got back home, I sold the farmhouse where my ex and I had lived, and started living healthier and happier in many small ways.
There are a number of things I’ve taken away from this story, knowing David the way I do and reflecting upon the many conversations we’ve had about life. I’m sharing it for the same reason why I share a bit of my life here: that maybe you’ll take away something of your own from it, too.
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That was quite an expirience Dave had in that storm. He never told Hermann and me the story. I guess he did not want to alarm us. You see, you learn more about your friends as you go along in time. Nice sharing the story with us.
Helma
Thank you David for writing your story, and Gail for sharing it again.
I can’t imagine how intense that experience was.
The way that David talked about that storm, it was clear he was profoundly affected by it. I have a special respect for people who deal with weather on a regular basis — people making a living at sea or in the air. Subjecting yourself to the elements like that? Not for everyone.
Wow. Chris has taken flying lessons out of the Blue Ash airport you reference – it’s only about 15 minutes from home. When Matt and Kelly were little (and I was a single parent) we’d go over to the airport on nice summer evenings and watch planes take off and land – cheap entertainment, nice people! They have a great airshow every year in late July. ~ David’s story leaves me with white knuckles as I read about the awful circumstances he found himself in … he really must have been a skilled pilot to navigate that storm safely. Way to go, Aviator Dave!