06/24/2009 - "That was scary..."

Checked the Terminal Area Forecast, and the weather looks good today. Nothing on radar, steady winds, smooth air. It's quite warm and humid today, and sweat is dripping off the end of my nose as I conduct pre-flight for good ol' 737ME. We don't have any air conditioning in this plane! There are vents which let in a good amount of air when the plane is in motion, and we can unlatch the windows to let in some air when we are taxiing on the ground, but for the moment, we are sitting in an oven with wings!

We're going to continue practicing slow flight, as well as power-off and power-on stalls. For the rest of the lesson, we will concentrate on landings and takeoffs at Bult Field.

Preflight, departure clearance, engine run-up uneventful. They've closed off taxiway F, so we need to taxi all the way to the other side of the tower apron before we can call ground for our taxi clearance. Luckily, Midway is departing from the 4's today, the thresholds of which are just off the tower apron, making for a short, smooth taxi to runway 4L.

Smooth climbout, a right turn to 180, flew clear of MDW's airspace, and began maneuvers.

First up: slow flight. While it is still tricky to hold my heading and altitude while flying at 40 knots with flaps fully extended, I must say that I am improving. I'm getting the hang of changing my heading by using varying amounts of rudder pressure and very little bank. Still, the nose-up attitude required for slow flight is somewhat unnerving. I'm going to need to continue practicing slow flight, although I am having an easier time applying the proper amount of rudder pressure when I pull my seat far enough forward before starting the engine.

Recovered from slow flight, and looked to the north to see a steadily thickening gray haze which seemed to begin at the lakefront and continue westbound for a few miles. At first, this haze didn't seem to be different than any other hazy conditions when we have seen before, but Tom commented that the haze seemed to be thickening. It seemed to be a very localized haze, which caused Tom to wonder if some sort of storm activity was developing. And yet, I remembered that there was nothing on the forecast. Surely, if a thunderstorm were brewing, we would have some warning!

Moved on to power-off stalls. I pulled out the carb heat, pulled the throttle back to 1,600 RPMs, steadily extended flaps to full, pulled the throttle to idle, then pulled back to simulate clearing an obstacle near the runway. Continued pulling back to cause a stall, and as soon as the stall began, pushed forward slightly on the control wheel to resume normal flight, pushed the throttle to full, pushed in the carb heat, retracted flaps to 20 degrees, held slow flight attitude until the airspeed began to increase, and retracted the flaps completely once the airspeed rose above 65 knots.

Two things I need to improve here. First, I was taking too long to set up for the stall. I need to remember that I am not conducting a full landing, so I don't need to take more than a couple seconds between each flap setting as I am getting ready for the stall. Today, Tom reminded me a couple times that I shouldn't lose so much altitude when I am setting up for a power-off stall. Second, I need to be much gentler with my control wheel movements, both before and after the stall. On my first stall today, I pushed forward too much on the control wheel and pushed the airplane almost straight down! On another maneuver, I tried to pull back too soon after the recovery, and created a secondary stall. The secret to stall recoveries is to limit myself to gentle control movements. Control surfaces are very effective, and I cannot underestimate the effects that my control motions have on the aircraft.

Turned toward Bult Field (C56). It's a quiet airstrip about 25 miles to the south of Midway, with just one runway: 9/27. We transmitted on the Common Terminal Advisory Frequency, 123.000, that we intended to overfly the field at 2,300 feet. I snapped a quick photograph as we approached from the west (shown here to the right). There is no automated weather information at this tiny field, but at the foot of each end of the runway, there is a windsock. As the wind blows across the surface, it turns the windsock, and pilots can look at it from the air to determine the wind direction, which aids us in our runway selection. We could tell that the wind was coming from the west today, which means we are going to be using runway 27 because we want to land facing into the wind.

Descended to traffic pattern altitude, which at this airport is 1,800 feet. Called entering downwind on the CTAF, pulled out the carb heat, and pulled the throttle back to 2,000 RPMs; trimmed for 80 knots. Tom coached me through each leg of the traffic pattern. When we were abeam the runway threshold, I pulled the throttle back to 1,600 and extended 10 degrees of flaps. Turned base, but lost too much altitude in the turn. Tom reminded me that I must pull back on the control wheel slightly when I am turning because some of the lift is spent to turn the airplane. As I turned final, I turned too early, and now because I lost so much altitude on my base leg I was also too low. Tom told me to apply a little bit of throttle to hold my altitude, and I overshot the runway centerline two times before lining up on it. At last, I was close enough to the runway to ensure that I would make it, so with Tom's blessing, I pulled the throttle to idle and extended 20 degrees of flaps. Flared too early, pitched the nose downward, then pulled back to flare, but landed all three wheels at the same time. Failed to use rudder to straighten out the plane, and put a bit of a side load on the landing gear as well. Tom wasn't happy.

"Don't lose so much altitude in the pattern. Avoid pitching down so much in the turns. Let the airplane get closer to the runway before flaring. You want the nose pointed into the air as you touch down so that all of the load goes to the main landing gear, and you have to use some right rudder to straighten the airplane out on the centerline or the side load can cause a blow out. Otherwise, good landing."

In addition to the gift of understatement, Tom possesses the gift of back-handed compliments. Ha.

We taxied off of the runway, and I called on the CTAF to tell any other pilots in the area that I was clear of runway 27. Performed the after-landing checklist, or as I'll call it, I cleaned up the airplane. No, this doesn't mean that I picked up trash in the cockpit, although it is a good idea to do that before leaving the aircraft. "Cleaning up the airplane" simply means that I pushed the carb heat in and retracted the flaps so that the airplane will be ready for takeoff. I taxied back toward runway 27, getting ready to go again.

And then, Tom and I both saw it. The grey haze we saw earlier had now grown to a dark, ominous sheet of black mist. From our vantage point, the localized cloud was 6 or 7 miles away, and it was difficult to tell if it was producing rain or not.

"Wow! Where in the world did that come from!?" Tom gasped.

"Do you think that's a rain storm?" I wondered.

"We'll get a better look at it from the air, but I can tell you right now that it doesn't look good."

Called on the CTAF to announce our intentions to take off from runway 27, punched the throttle to full, and climbed out at 75 knots.

"Turn to the north," Tom directed, his eyes fixated on the dark grey clouds.

I banked to the north, and stared at the storm cell in the distance.

"Wow!" exclaimed Tom. "That's rain, alright. And a lot of it."

I instantly realized that this was definitely a strong storm, and that it had popped up out of nowhere. I have seen hundreds of storms in my lifetime, but only from the ground. When you're watching a rainstorm from the air, it's like watching a dark grey sheet which dangles from the clouds and shrouds the ground in an opaque mist. We were flying in warm, humid air with the sunshine beating down on our heads, but the distant wall of rain dragged over the ground like a heavy curtain, and it was clear that this wall of rain was so dense that no amount of sunshine could penetrate it. I asked Tom to take the airplane for a moment so that I could snap a couple shots, but I assure you that my photos just don't do the storm justice. The veil of darkness was almost black, and I watched it envelop trees and buildings as it crept closer. 5 miles away. 4 miles away. I finished taking my photos, and asked Tom to control the plane again. Then, just as Tom responded "You have the airplane", the plot thickened.

I saw a white bolt of lightning zip from the cloud tops all the way to the ground.

"I see lightning!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah," agreed Tom. "And it's headed this way. We need to go back. Continue north, and get the ATIS information."

The ATIS at Midway wasn't that bad. Wind out of the northeast, only 7 knots, and landing on the 4's. Good, I thought. The storm hasn't reached Midway yet.

But when I contacted Midway Tower, the controller's voice was very stressed. We called in our intention to land, and he acknowledged us amid frantic reports of wind shear and microbursts at the thresholds of several runways. Wind shear means that the wind is radically changing direction very close to the runway, which can spell disaster for aircraft on final or takeoff. And microbursts are winds that press downward right next to the runways, which can cause landing or departing aircraft to suddenly sink. Both of these phenomena are very dangerous, especially when you're flying a little Cessna like we are.

The storm was now three miles off our right wing. Sudden density changes in the atmosphere would cause the plane to lose altitude unexpectedly. I would sink 100 feet, then push in the throttle a little and try to climb back up to 1,900, but the density would change again and I would sink. On a couple occasions, the wings banked unexpectedly to the left, and I applied control wheel pressure to keep the wings level. I began to feel nervous, and I asked Tom to take the airplane.

"I have the airplane," Tom dutifully responded.

I pulled the shoulder strap of my seatbelt tightly, made sure my feet were clear of the rudder pedals, and concentrated on snapping pictures of the storm.



Tower gave us multiple traffic advisories. Here's a picture of an executive business jet that passed in front of us on approach to 4R. Tower suddenly gave us a frantic instruction.

"Cessna 737ME, fly heading 310. Traffic at your 9 o'clock, 2 miles, a 737 inbound for 4R."

Tom turned slightly to the left to head 310, and I looked out our left window. To my surprise, I saw a very LARGE Southwest 737 headed straight for us, our altitude, and I was amazed as it loomed larger and larger in the window. I tried to snap several shots of this incredible sight, but we were very quickly out of his way, and none of my shots came out. There was never a danger of conflict, but this experience served as a reminder that there are some big planes out there!


Once the Southwest jet was behind us, Tom asked Tower if we could turn to final. Tower cleared us to land on 4L. There was some rocky air on the way down; crosswinds picking up; Tom put us into a slip to get down to the runway. The landing was a little rough, and as we exited the runway, I looked up to see the thunderstorm bearing down on us.

"That was scary..." Tom confessed.

We heard several pilots asking the ground controller about the weather, and the controller continued to report wind shear and microbursts in the vicinity of the airport. The ground controller was asking pilots if they were ready to taxi, and I heard two Southwest pilots saying, "No. We're going to stay right here and wait until this blows over."

Pilots flying 737's don't want to take off in this weather, and we're landing in it. ;)

Taxied into the parking spot, and when I shut down the engine and popped open the door, I was hit with a blast of cool, damp air. The temperature has dropped 25 degrees in 15 minutes! Tom and I rushed to tie down our little Cessna as the storm started to roll over the field.

I looked to the north edge of the field. I knew that the rain was going to start falling within seconds, but I couldn't resist snapping this shot. I took this picture from the tower apron, looking north. Only ten seconds before this picture was taken, I could clearly see the large Southwest hangers on the far edge of the field. As you can see, the storm has completely obscured everything.

"Uh, Eric?" Tom admonished, "Hurry it up... I don't want to get drenched!"

I smiled, and jogged alongside Tom as we hurried to the FBO, and made it inside just as the rain really started to pour down on us.

I've spoken to several pilots about this pop-up thunderstorm today, and all of them agreed that there hasn't been a sudden thunderstorm like this in Chicago for at least 10 years. The radar forecast during my pre-flight was completely clear, and here is how it looked just 90 minutes later! The consensus is that cool air from off the lake merged with warm, dense air over the city, and developed into a storm cell. Every pilot was caught off guard. A friend of mine flying out of Los Angeles to Chicago was delayed for several hours while ATC tried to figure out how long the storm was going to stay. And as I drove home, the rain flooded my windshield so badly that I couldn't see the car directly ahead of me. Wind whipped several small rocks off the rooftops next to 63rd street and pelted my truck, cracking my windshield in two places, and leaving a nasty scratch on the driver's side door.

Quite the adventure. I was glad that Tom took the aircraft over, and we made it back just in time. I learned a very valuable lesson today; as pilots, we must respect the weather!

It's about time to start practicing landings, and lots of them. But that will have to wait until next time!

- Airman Eric