system
Are storms really on the increase, or, are you just looking more closely?
… move the airplane…
Are storms really on the increase, or, are you just looking more closely?
… move the airplane…
The question of whether storms are becoming more frequent is kind of an academic discussion, since the only one that matters is the one you are facing at the time. As we say here on the Gulf Coast of Texas, even in a quiet hurricane season, it only takes one to make a mess. Your advice about moving the plane is good advice, but sometimes where you move it is just as important. Many years ago, I had my trusty Beech Musketeer tied down outside at Houston’s Hobby airport. A category four hurricane brewed up in the Gulf and was headed toward the city. Most of the big planes in the hangars bugged out and headed inland, leaving Hobby as a virtual ghost town. As a result, I was able to beg my way into one of the empty hangars for the storm’s duration. As often happens, the storm veered off, slamming into the Corpus Christi area and moving inland. Also, as they often do, the dying storm spawned a number of tornados, one of which went through the Austin city airport where many of the big corporate jets from Hobby were hiding. The twister collapsed a hanger onto several jets and damaged others parked outside. My Musketeer emerged the next day totally unscathed. Some days you just can’t win.
… move the airplane… far far away… real far away…
GOOD ADVICE in advance for Airventure 2022, et sub !!
Just last week Wed (15th), I was working inside my hangar – 35 miles west of OSH – preparing my cargo trailer as my abode for Airventure week. No more tents for THIS lad! Every time I came out of it to get something in the hangar, I noticed the sky was getting darker and darker thru the open personnel door so I walked outside to reconnoiter; I didn’t like what I was seeing coming from the west. I quickly shut everything down and was just climbing into my pickup when the sky opened up with water and wind the likes I’ve never seen around here. I actually gave thought to what I’d do if the truck blew over it was shaking so bad and I was on the lee side of the hangar. Driving home, I had to dodge fallen debris and trees. That weather front spawned quite a few tornados on its way NE toward OSH and GRB. This’ll be my 40th Airventure; over all those years, I’d say there was bad weather at least one day during more than half the shows. I’ve summered in this environment for 20 years; I can attest to the fact that when the weather turns bad around here … it REALLY turns bad.
Last Airventure, I was high and dry inside my cargo trailer but many of those in tents got clobbered. In fact, EAA was announcing over the PA system for people to go to the EAA Museum to seek shelter. The folks that run the campground I use opened up their basement to everyone. And don’t forget the guy with the multi-engine RV that somehow found enough bubble wrap to cover his whole airplane. Sadly, I remember that pile of damaged airplanes at SnF '11.
As you said, plan for and then actively seek a place to escape to protect your airplane and yourself plus how you’ll deal with the attendant logistics before it becomes a front and center issue. Me … my airplane will be in its hangar, I’ll be in my cargo trailer at the show and our group has beer! 
My insurance company will pay me the cost of moving an airplane out of the path of a hurricane. Their logic is simple - they’d rather pay a few hundred bucks to move it than $50k ~ $100k or more to total it.
When it comes to making the “should I stay or should I go?” decision, removing the financial burden makes it a little easier.
Check your policy to see if your insurance company makes the same offer.
2 replies
Meteorologists in early 70s used to scoff at citizen reports of hailstones larger than a marble. Then came freezers, with people scooping up the stones and putting them in the freezer as proof, and now smartphones with video and cameras people point and shoot all the time.
They scoff no more.
Storms in France have produced tennis ball hailstones, with estimated velocities of 135 kph, which smash through tiled roofs, and even thin steel ones, the type used for some factories and hangers.
Most of these monster hailstones fall in bursts amid rain, for just two or three minutes.
Even so they will mince any aircraft they come into contact with.
The mere golf-ball sizes ones hardly make the news anymore.
I can’t say I know much about aircraft insurance. But when it comes to home and car insurance there is an industry wide database that tracks every claim you make. Unless you are later on in life as sadly many active GA pilots are, might be best just to suck it up and pay to move the airplane yourself instead of making a small claim that could impact your rates.
Great article, Paul. The storm won’t damage an airplane that’s not hit by the storm. Re: Hail - in the early aughts a hailstorm hit Socorro NM with hailstones the size of softballs and bigger. There used to be some vids online of a parking lot at New Mexico Tech. Every car in the lot was totalled.
1 reply
Good to know, thanks. I didn’t realize some carriers offered this.
Sun N Fun, 2011…
And if you are staying put. Forget those nylon ratchet straps with stitching that is not worth anything and worth even less after a month in the sun. And if you have an open ended hook on your tie down - it WILL unhook as the strap or rope vibrate in the 60+ knots.
And if you are a neighbor to my plane and you are not tied down properly with fresh rope - the bill is on the way from the local marine consignment store where I picked up some real rope and tied your plane down properly so it would not come loose and hazard mine. I made a PIC decision on that one. You are welcome! Spot my pet peeve!!
A few years ago, I attended an air show not too far from Wellner’s place. Same state, anyway. I went to both days of the event. Saturday went off without a hitch. Sunday was a completely different matter. During the Blue Angels’ performance, #7, the narrator, announced that they were knocking off early. He explained that the explanation for this could be seen by looking over our left shoulders. There it was–an epic storm. On the airport were millions of dollars worth of aircraft, including one of the two remaining flying B29s and other priceless warbirds. There was an epic effort equal to the storm as airmen and ground personnel turned to. Somehow, the Angels’ ground crews fitted those aircraft into a hangar that looked too small and really challenged that assembly of crack maintenance crews. Other planes took off to avoid the storm. A Cessna belonging to the CAP was on the apron, and not tied down. A swarm of airport and other personnel swarmed the aircraft and hung on for dear life. If that Cessna had gotten loose, its brief flight would have ended with a collision with a warbird. I was in my car, parked in the first row past the movement area, and was watching as people hurried through the downpour to their cars. I snapped a photo of the Cessna being held down, the warbird in the background, and one of the ground crew wearing a yellow vest sprinting toward the Cessna to help. The photo is somewhat indistinct, but only because of the sheets of rain falling–or rather blown sideways by the gust. It’s still one of my favorite photos. Everyone came through OK.
1 reply
Wellner’s place?? … where is this?
I just got my RV-8 done and I have about 15 hours flying on it. It’s tie-down here in CHD. Hopefully this season it will not be hit by any bad thunderstorms… It’s a risk we all face when dealing with weather…
Error!
Incidence rate of severe weather is NOT increasing.
Read for example https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/05/UKWeather2020-21.pdf.
Location of severe events varies, often one somewhere in the big world. For example, the US went a decade without a major hurricane striking the continent. (But some hurricanes may have hit islands in the Caribbean including Puerto Rico, or the Yucatan Peninsula and countries to the south.)
1 reply
Last year at Oshkosh after working our booth my wife and I jumped in the Bonanza and flew it back to Cincinnati. She wanted to get back to the kids anyway so we had planned to run her back on Thursday. So I flew her back Wednesday evening, gassed up, and flew back to Oshkosh the next morning. Early in the morning that line had burned out over Indiana so I flew through it and got back into Oshkosh before the field went IFR around 0830 local. Not much sleep. There was a lot of damage around Fisk when I did the arrival again.
The military has used the pack up & move philosophy for years. Unfortunately, the logistics problems involving time, pilots and so forth often necessitate leaving many aircraft behind.
A problem in many locations, such as mid-south Alberta where they seed clouds from below to reduce size of hail. Paid for by insurance companies.
Hail forms from bits of ice that are bounced up and down in the air, gaining weight each pass.
IIRC Ron from Avsig forum had flown some seeding flights.
https://fuseinsurance.ca/alberta-hail-suppression-project/
(That range is from just south of Calgary to Red Deer which is halfway to Edmont.)
So buy UV resistant straps and replace them periodically. (Old ones may be useful around the home.)
Good point about open hooks, I wouldn’t even trust typical ones with spring-loaded keeper. Hardware stores sell chain links with threaded middle but I don’t know quality of them, have one replacing spring attachment on one side of old Stanley garage door.
Are my eyes so bad I don’t see my post resporting that one Martin Mars was thrown 200 yards by Typhoon Freda in 1962.
In any case, here is an article on the deal to transfer the less capable of the two to a museum in FL.
https://fireaviation.com/2014/08/28/wayne-coulson-on-the-martin-mars-and-their-c-130/
Deal delayed and delayed by bureaucrats and politicians, AFAIK has not happened yet because of budget uncertainty for the USN museum.
(While people near the Martin assembly plant wanted it, they did not have prospects for funds.
Since that interview, Coulson has added C-130s and B737s to its heavy air tanker fleet.)
Paul Bertorelli is (in the words of a co-worker from Sierra Leone giving me a compliment for my somewhat inept IT skills years ago) The Sheet !
I think what Kai from central Africa meant was that I was “Hot [er, um] Stuff” …and Paul is undoubtedly that.
P.S.: I can relate to the Father with a Volcanic temperament; mine would lose it when I did not put the worm on the fishhook correctly when we were attempting to catch fish near the hot and humid Chesapeake Bay. Only years later did I realize that this behavior was created by my Mother’s use of heaping tablespoons of Maxwell House high octane prior to our setting off for the boat dock in a non-airconditioned ‘53 Ford. Ah, the “fond” days of youth.
I’m a minority here… but I live in Florida not far from Paul and am confronted each season with the fight or flight dilemma. At the first warning of a pending hurricane my FBO reminds me that I am going to be liable for any damage my plane may cause as a result of the weather. I am urged to move my plane to safety. My reaction each year is “No. Hell no.” I’m not going to fly away leaving my wife, family, and faithful dog to survive as best they can. Fortunately my insurer agrees. They specifically urge me to secure my plane as best as possible and to go home to take precautions with my family. I own a low and slow, VFR only legacy airplane. Not a safe platform for evading even the relatively moderate conditions that precede a Florida hurricane. So then there is that. But even if I owned the Navion or Cirrus my grandson wants me to buy so he can build time, I’d do the same.
Well, my memory anyway.
The post was in the ‘death of an airplane’ thread.
Adding to Mars history:
Only a few built, USN only had four left when Dan McIvor bought the fleet from it. (One had burned after engine fire.)
Coulson has the nose and FE station built for one not assembled when line was shut down, good training aids.