Right you are about staying well clear, VFR. The problem for builders
who can obtain IFR certification is being inside of cloud that
unforcastedly (new word) goes electric. Some years ago, I was struck
once on an IFR approach, in the winter (was actually "thundersnow").
The forecast called for the frontal activity arriving an hour hence,
and the ATIS on the destination field, from which direction the clouds
came, said 7500 and 10, and birds singing.
I could no longer transmit, but could receive, so the lost-comm ILS
(field went suddenly to 300 and 1/2 in snow) went OK using transponder
idents for reply. But I couldn't tell approach what happened, and it
was strange that a DC-9 in trail behind me asked for no weather
deviation. Approach Control was clueless, and the airline crew must
have had nothing serious on their radar either.
In a recent incident here, the 6:00PM TV news/weather said possible
scattered storms, but nothing yet on radar anywhere. At 7:00PM, a
friend was out towing a banner, when a squall line, with tornado
warning per the interrupted TV broadcasts, formed a few miles away
over Lake Erie moving in very rapidly. He tried to outrun the line 15
miles back to home base (the best direction to fly anyway, but banner
planes are slow). Plenty lightning around, but the least of his
worries, as when he saw the funnel cloud, he was afraid to enter the
pattern for the field. He had to drop and land at another airport.
Tornado touched down briefly, right about where he would have turned
final at the home field.
So, it would be nice if the Europa airframe could be constructed to
take a strike when rare but possible things like this happen.
Regards,
Fred F.
A063, N3EU
> Last time I checked our Europas are not transport size aircraft, so this is
> a no brainer: If you are close enough to a thunderstorm to get struck by
> lightning, you will die anyway (except, possibly, by being fortunate enough
> to be wearing a parachute at the time). Let's see, do I want to die as a
> result of structural failure from turbulence or structural failure from
> lightning? Obvious answer: neither!
>
> Best regards,
> Rob Housman
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