On Thu, 26 May 2005 13:34:38 -0400, T o d d P a t t i s t
wrote:

Several things stand out in my memory of that flight: 1. Weather was
definately a factor. This route is known as the northeast corridor and
if you want to understand how bad the weather can be, just read "Fate
is the Hunter" by Ernest K. Gann. The next time I go, if I ever do
again, I will try flying north of the great lakes (in Canadian
airspace) and turn south after lake Michigan.

I've thought about via Canada, but that would add 150+ miles
for me. Do you have reason to think better weather would
make that a good tradeoff?

It makes sense for me up in central Vermont to consider that route
because I only have to head a few points north of west to pass north
of lake Erie from where I live. You'd have to pretty much head
directly north to pass east of the lake before turning west.

I kept hearing that the thundercells we encountered pretty much stayed
south, or over the lakes due to the prevailing northwest wind. That's
what appealed to me about flying west in Canada. On the other hand, I
haven't done it yet, so I'm making what amounts to a WAG.

We did not get to see much of Chicago when we passed it to the south
because the mother of all thundercells was sitting directly on top of
it.

We saw it from many miles away as we approached Chicago, and edged
south to go around. When we were directly opposite the city, we were
under the anvil by many miles, but flying in calm air, or so we
thought.

To our right, the sky was a vicious and evil looking dark blue green
from the sky to the ground. Right in the middle of the darkest part
of the storm, the sky was absolutely white with falling water. It
looked like we were watching an ocean dumping right on the center of
Chicago. I half expected to see waves cascading down the streets from
the center of the storm. And all the while, lightning bolts were
striking down all around the column of water. It seemed like the
lightning strikes were occurring at least once every several seconds.

Suddenly the Waco was blasted by a sudden violent gust and the pilot
instantly yelped, reduced throttle and banked away to the south.

Guess we weren't as far away from the storm as we'd thought.

The time of the day was late afternoon. We encountered one more
monster as we closed on our rendevous stop and managed to fly around
that one without much difficulty. Using the GPS made flying over
southern Wisconsin a piece of cake. We'd just alter our course west,
hold that till we'd passed the storm center and then punch in direct
to our destination and come back on course. The sameness of the
landscape made map reading ridiculously difficult. But we had them in
our laps none the less.

Corky Scott