Any Port in a Storm…
I was stuck in the plane in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. Crazy winds buffeted the plane around me. I could barely see out the windshield for the pounding rain. Lightning flashed all around. This was entirely my fault. Or maybe the ducks’ fault.
I’d flown to Memphis for business and had a great few days. Memphis International Airport (KMEM) is FedEx’s Worldwide Headquarters and Super-Hub, where 757s full of “absolutely-positively-have-to-be-there-overnight” packages come and go, literally 24/7. FedEx can turn 475,000 packages per hour for delivery at KMEM. Orange and purple birds everywhere. I was squeezed in on the east-west runway, while the FedEx traffic was using the longer north-south runways. The KMEM tower asked me to come to a complete stop on the runway to allow FedEx traffic to depart to the north. So, I managed a rare photo op from the runway!
As I parked, my heart skipped a beat to see an intimidating United States of America-liveried jet on the ramp. POTUS and Vice-POTUS warrant severe no-fly zones around their travel, and if you manage to get within 10 miles of their plane, let alone taxi up it, you’re in BIG trouble. Of course the FAA publishes warnings on where they’ll be (i.e. where you can’t fly), and I’d checked for them, but POTUS plans can change while you’re in the air. Luckily, this was just Attorney General Bill Barr’s plane. Nobody cares enough to grant him a no-fly zone…
Business in Memphis was intense the next day, and despite the fabulous evening weather, I was in no shape to fly home after an all-day session. So I stayed the night in anticipation of seeing the Peabody Hotel’s famous March of the Ducks. The Peabody ducks had been frolicking in the hotel lobby fountain when I’d checked in, but apparently it’s a travesty to visit Memphis and miss their official march. After all, the Peabody Duck Master has trained them to commute by elevator and red carpet from the rooftop to the lobby fountain and back, which they’ve done daily, since 1933.
Meanwhile, a wicked 400-mile long cold front was racing southeast toward Memphis (and, further south, toward my home base in Houston). I wanted no part of it. If I left early, I’d beat it home. If not, it was going to be close. Alas, the Peabody ducks only march at 11 a.m….
Throwing caution to the wind, I chose the ducks.
They were surely entertaining. More about them here. But the minute they’d waddled the red carpet, I scooted for the airport and took off.
FlightAware’s capture of my flight path suggests I might have picked my way through and behind the front up north. It didn’t look that way when I took off. (This snapshot of the weather is from about halfway through this flight.) All of east Texas and western Louisiana was a mess. The big jets were on frequency asking for weather deviations, one after another, for hours.
I thought if I got to the coast, the front would peter out at the water and I could slip across Galveston Bay and into home base at AXH. But by the time I could see the Gulf, the storms were pummeling Beaumont with continuous lightning and “extreme precipitation,” as ATC oft repeated. I can’t remember seeing the plane’s StormScope any brighter.
Discretion is often the better part of valor, so I decided I’d just land, kick back at the FBO, grab a Diet Coke and a snack, read a book, and let the storm pass. I landed at Southland Executive Airport, in Sulphur, LA (KUXL). I could have landed at Lake Charles (just nine miles east), but I’d never been to Southland and thought I’d check it out. I was anticipating some fine Southern hospitality at the published Southland Aviation executive FBO. Southland doesn’t have a control tower, so I properly announced my arrival and landed.
Preoccupied with the looming weather, it wasn’t until I had wheels on the runway that I discovered that the Southland FBO had been literally flattened by recent hurricanes Laura and Delta. Bummer. After taxiing around for a few minutes considering my options, it was worth staying on the ground — the windsock had swung around, and the apocalyptic-looking front was bearing down. I called my wife to let her know where I was, and had just tied the plane down when the first hints of the storm’s gust front arrived. (Note to self: insist the kids learn to tie good knots.)
With no FBO to hide in, I hopped back in the plane and kicked back to ride out the storm as it passed. The pyrotechnics outside didn’t disappoint. For half an hour, the wind rocked the cabin back and forth. Thunder growled, and giant rain drops beat a pleasing rhythm on the wings. I almost fell asleep. Meanwhile, ironically, a pair of ducks, unphased, splashed around in a nearby ditch.
Once the storm passed overhead, it was a beautiful, easy flight on to Houston, clear and smooth. The front left a bit of a northern crosswind at Houston-Southwest’s east-west runway, but that’s nothing new.
Of course I’d had the Southland ramp to myself. The good news was the storm’s passage left a decent backdrop for some photos during the walk-around…
They say you should never, ever get caught in a small plane in a thunderstorm. But if you do it right, it’s not that bad…
P.S. Some have read this account as “playing chicken” with a storm, something that should not be done. I can assure you there was no chicken here (only ducks). Perhaps it’s not obvious, but I never left calm blue sky on this entire flight. Nor planned to. At all times, there was 100 miles of blue sky available to the east if the front did something unpredictable. Flying home at night after two exhausting days at work would have been a mistake. Trying to scud-run under the storm or through it would have been dangerous. Landing ahead of it to sit it out on the ground was the plan if I couldn’t safely get around it. Remember two things: (1) if you’ve got time to spare, go by air and (2) it’s better to be on the ground wishing you were flying than up flying and wishing you were on the ground!
