Summertime weather around here can be brutal. When the heat and humidity team up like it has for the past few days, everything slows down to an oppressive crawl. It's not dog days, too early for that, it's just the normal “welcome to July in the South” kind of weather. It could be 120 degrees in the Arizona desert, and it wouldn’t come close to the feeling of that thick blanket of motionless heat that's waiting on you right outside the back door. Besides just being uncomfortable, that kind of weather can create powerful forces of nature that we often don't properly respect. That was the kind of weather I remember on a day back in 1991 when I got a little lesson from mother nature.
At that time, I was working for a company that did business all over the state of Georgia and used private aviation to cut down on travel time. There were three pilots in the company, and we flew somewhere just about every week. On this particular day, we were racing to meet a deadline to get a proposal to Atlanta for an upcoming state project. Time was running short, and the only way we could meet the deadline was to fly the proposal to Atlanta. I pleaded my case to one of the pilots, who will remain nameless, and he agreed to make the trip. Hurrying to the airport, he instructed me to call for a weather advisory. The report was not terrible, but it also was not great. Thunderstorms were expected, but there was a short window if we left immediately. One rule I learned about flying was if there is any doubt about anything, then you don’t go. Unfortunately, we didn't follow that rule that day. Ignoring good sense and feeling bulletproof, we took off into a blue sky that was rapidly turning a dark electric gray with large rolling clouds colliding behind us. If you are airborne, one of the worst sights you can see, especially from a small airplane cockpit is an anvil cloud. This is a huge, high-altitude cloud that looks just like an anvil. It has the potential for powerful downdrafts, torrential rain, heavy lightning, and ice particles even in the middle of July. In the time it took you to read that last sentence, a giant anvil cloud appeared out of nowhere and closed in on us. In seconds, the single engine airplane flipped inverted. I knew that because everything in my pockets was now on the upside-down roof of the cabin. Just that quickly everything went completely black, and buckets of water slammed against the windshield and fuselage. The pilot got control back and righted the plane, but visibility was zero, and the vertical speed indicator was pegged out at the maximum reading. We were caught in the unforgiving grip of a super violent down draft and losing altitude quickly. With lightning popping all around, turbulence threw the plane up then spiraled down and around. Nobody said a word; we were too busy looking for the ground. Finally, the pilot said, “if you see a way out, let me know.” Frankly, I was hoping for a little more assurance that things were going to be okay, but the pilot was busy doing just what the manual prescribed. We were now flying straight and level and earnestly looking for an escape hatch from this nightmare of a storm. Sure enough, we spotted a glimpse of a broken patch of blue below us, and we dove for it. Twenty minutes later, we landed in Atlanta and hand delivered the proposal to its destination. During the return trip home, we spotted that same anvil cloud sitting over Macon. Out of respect for mother nature, we made a big, wide detour to stay as far away as we possibly could.
I thoroughly enjoyed flying in those days, but I never had quite the same enthusiasm for it after that experience. There were many more trips following that one, and the pleasure of flying never really left me, but the life lessons of that stormy summer day remain with me and have had a lasting influence. Whenever I see or hear an approaching thunderstorm, I'm always glad to have my feet on the ground, and I have always remembered coming back to Swainsboro at the end of that hot, precarious summer day in 1991 as my most favorite flight ever.
