Sport-Touring.Net - The Crown

The Crown was a corporate pilot. He started his love of flight as a flight engineer on Douglas B-26's in Korea. He then went on to get his VFR & IFR ratings after the war, met my Mom & got a job patrolling power lines in a Cessna 150 for Gulf States Utilities (now Entergy). He progressed to multi-engine (Beech King Air & Cessna Skymaster) and finally his thrill for close to 30 years, LearJets.

Anyway, The Crown was a fairly decent storyteller too. He wrote this for the Houston BMW Club newsletter sometime in the 80's.

Having flown along the Gulf Coast for 30 years....more than 30 years, I have had to deal with tunderstorms in one way or another most of my career. However, the one that reached out and took a bite was in southern Illinois. My hangar story is as follows....

Back in 1974, Jim Killough and I had been flying Learjets for about a year. We had about 600 hours of Lear time in our logs and thought we were pretty sharp.

One July morning with 8 souls in the back, we departed BMT (Beaumont, TX) for ORD (O'hare). BMT to ORD takes about 2 hours in a Lear, 2:15 if it is blowing snow, but this morning the forecast was listed as scattered showers and no other remarks noted.

The flight was uneventful, smooth, no wind, ground speed was about the same as true, 440 knots.

We had filed the preferred route to the entry gate southwest of ORD. About 130 miles out of our computed descent point, there was this huge thunderstorm off to our right about 1 o'clock. We had been looking at it on radar and eyeballing it for some miles. Yes, it was one of those big mothers. The main core was at least 20 miles across with its mushroom head about 3 times that wide, wreaking havoc across the farmland 7 miles below. On our present heading it created no problem for us. WRONG! Chicago Center calls, "Lear 714K, turn right 50 degrees for vectors for in trail spacing to ORD" Now that mother is 12 o'clock and we ain't near high enough.

Right before a thunderstorm matures, out of the top comes those wispy fingers, warning you not to get too close. I was about to tell Jim to call Center for a higher ceiling, but he was already doing that. A quick response from Center, "Stand by, we will check on your request". Well now, this here Lear makes 100 nautical miles every 15 minutes. No time was short. We are now skimming across the dome of this monster and those wispy fingers are begging us to come closer. A second call.....no response.

The Learjet flight manual says if you anticipate turbulence, turn on the air ignition. I started to reach for the switches when the first rumble of turbulence started. I grabbed the wheel when the Lear pitched down. The insturment panel began to blur from the shaking. I could not get my eyes to focus because we were being banged around so hard. The airspeed indicator was going crazy. We were exceeding the MMO one second and near slow speed buffet the next. I was getting high speed aileron buzz from the high speed mach and little control when near the stall. The altimeter looked like a falling rock. I could not believe how fast we were descending. Hell, we were falling, and fast! The rate of climb/descent indicator was pegged at 10,000' down. "Get those damn air ignition switches on!"

The shaking and descent stopped as abruptly as it had started. We were still right side up and for about 2 seconds all appeared normal. Jim was still trying to contact the Center and making sure the cabin pressure was under control. The next sensation I felt was that we were going sideways. Just as I reached for the ignition switches, there was a very loud bang. Like a .45 going off in the cockpit. "There, I got the air ignition switches on". But I was too late. The bang was the port engine flaming out. Now the turbulence was back and the airplane was trying to roll to the right and we were climbing at a very rapid rate. Trying to keep the airplane upright was all I could do. The emergency engine-out checklist would have to wait.

The single engine altitude limits for a Lear 25 is about 29,000'. It didn't really matter, we were still going up. Somewhere around 42,000' it spit us out the top and I was indeed pleased to note we were still upright. A second or two making sure everything was allright, then on with the checklist.

We needed a turn to the right to the hell out of there plus the single engine power would not keep us at that altitude so we were going down whether we wanted to or not. Jim finally got hold of Center and informed them of our plight. We were immediately vectored away from the storm and then direct to the airport. We were first in line. We got into relegate altitude and were able to restart the port engine and had no other problems the remainder of the flight.

When we got on the ground, the only comment from the passengers was it sure was bumpy and did you hear that loud lightning pop?

I was so mad at the controller I immediately called him to have it out. However, he as so apologetic, I didn't really get to vent my anger. He was in fact trying to do us a favor by vectoring us to the east entry gate so we wouldn't have to hold on the west side. He conceded that I had a legitimate complaint and if I wanted to file a report against him, he would understand. What the heck, we both learned something and I didn't want the Feds involved anymore than necessary.

The remainder of the day and the flight home was uneventful. I have never let us get into that type situation since that day and I will not let it happen again.

So that is my thunderstorm story. Not as bad as others I'm sure but I learned a valuable lesson that day.

The Crown would've been 80 today. Happy Birthday dad. I raise a glass of Jack to you. Neat of course. Wink

Topic: The Crown (Read 1044 times)