Monday evening t'storm arrives at OSH

We were there Thursday-Sunday.

Dang! You shoulda stopped by, Kyle! We were doing the "Departure
Party" every night, with several different (always donated) kinds of
beer. We usually had anywhere from 5 to 15 people, "grading" landings
and departures. It was great fun!

When we
got back to Homebuilt camping, the row of porta potties had blown over. I'd
hate to clean up that mess, but I'd hate it even worse if I'd been inside
one of 'em when it went over.

Three of the four porta-potties nearest our campsite in the North 40
were blown over by that storm today, too. My son was very nearly
inside one of them when the storm hit -- he just missed it by a minute
or two -- and they blew over ONTO THEIR DOORS.

Can you imagine what being trapped inside must be like, with all the
blue water and, um, stuff, flowing everywhere? God almighty. They
were smashed up pretty badly, too. (Do they *insure* porta-potties?)

Once things dried out, we broke camp, loaded the airplane, and headed south
where we saw some REALLY interesting weather. Just north of Aurora, I
deviated west to avoid some building convective activity. We went around a
rain shaft or two, and then I spotted a funnel cloud dropping from the base
of the convective stuff. It dropped 300-500' from the cloud base and
couldn't have been more than 3 miles away.

Wow! Not many people can say they've seen a tornado THAT close.
Pretty scary stuff.

I wonder what that would look like on a 496?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
We were there Thursday-Sunday.

snip

Once things dried out, we broke camp, loaded the airplane, and headed
south
where we saw some REALLY interesting weather. Just north of Aurora, I
deviated west to avoid some building convective activity. We went around
a
rain shaft or two, and then I spotted a funnel cloud dropping from the
base
of the convective stuff. It dropped 300-500' from the cloud base and
couldn't have been more than 3 miles away.

Wow! Not many people can say they've seen a tornado THAT close.
Pretty scary stuff.

Not scary at all. Other than one dark cloud (with a funnel sticking out the
bottom), there was no turbulence in the area and only a couple of small rain
shafts. It looked like lots of other building weather I've flown under or
preferably around. The real surprise was that a relatively small cloud
could spawn a twister. If the RV didn't have a wood prop, I probably
wouldn't have deviated and would have flown right under the cloud where the
funnel appeared.


I wonder what that would look like on a 496?

It appeared and disappeared quickly enough that I think you'd have been
lucky to have gotten a radar snapshot which showed it.

I think this took place at 1:20 PM Central time (plus or minus 15 minutes).
I wonder if anyone knows where to find yesterday's radar loop from Aurora,
Il? It would be interesting to look at those pictures.

KB

--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article .com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Wow! Not many people can say they've seen a tornado THAT close.
Pretty scary stuff.
I wonder what that would look like on a 496?

Look up "hook echo". There should be some good radar images for you to
study.

On 30 Jul 2006 21:04:25 -0700, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:
Can you imagine what being trapped inside must be like, with all the
blue water and, um, stuff, flowing everywhere? God almighty. They
were smashed up pretty badly, too.

So will they start requiring the porta-potties to be tied down like
the aircraft from now on? Sounds reasonable...