The small plane trembled as it paused, engine running, on the taxiway. The pilot, busy reading through his checklist, sat in the cockpit patiently waiting for the controller in the tower to give him permission to depart. “Any day now,” muttered the pilot, a young man named Carl, into the open air of the rumbling cockpit. While the 145 horsepower engine purred at full throttle, it rumbled, shuddered, and shook the plane as it idled on the taxiway. Carl liked to think of the plane like a horse, anxious and ready for the gate to open and the race to begin so it could run freely at full gallop down the runway and into the fenceless sky.
“Charlie Victor Three, you are clear for departure. Runway one eight, wind is from the north at seventeen, altimeter two, niner, niner, zero,” came the radio call from the tower.
“Charlie Victor Three, cleared for departure, runway one eight, altimeter two, niner, niner, zero,” Carl repeated.
He pushed the throttle forward and the engine quickly changed its tone from angry sputtering to a smooth, full-throated, roar. The single engine plane rolled forward onto the runway. Carl depressed the left pedal to turn the plane and position it on the centerline of runway eighteen. Easing back on the throttle, he used the toe brakes on the rudder pedals to hold the plane at the line as he ran through the checklist in his head one last time. Then, he pushed the throttle all the way forward and listened as the engine picked up speed, roaring louder and louder. He could feel the turbulent air wash from the spinning propeller as it rocked the small plane, trying, with all its might, to pull the plane forward. Carl checked the engine gauges one final time for fuel pump pressure and engine speed, then he released the brakes.
In the tower, the controller watched the small plane as it slowly began rolling forward on the runway. Sitting in the cockpit, Carl listened to the hammering air from the propeller on the windshield. He could feel in his seat where each piece of concrete joined with the next as the planes wheels rolled along the concrete runway. The combined vibrations caused each riveted piece of thin aluminum skin on the aircraft to shake audibly. It sounded in the cockpit like the entire plane would soon tear itself apart.
The roar of the engine smoothed slightly as the plane rolled faster down the runway. At about sixty knots and halfway down the runway, Carl could feel the plane’s wings begin to generate lift and the flight surfaces take control of the plane. Keeping the plane’s wheels on the runway, Carl waited until the speed was over seventy-five knots before he allowed the plane to lift off into the late morning sunshine.
The controller watched the plane’s clean departure, his eyes on the plane as it rose to 500 feet, before turning away from the window and returning to his computer screen. “Charlie Victor Three, climb to five thousand, heading one eight zero.” Said the controller, then quickly followed with, “Charlie Victor Three, resume own navigation.”
“Charlie Victor Three, resume own navigation,” said Carl, repeating only the last transmission from the controller.
Carl turned on his autopilot and set the plane into a controlled climb up to 5,000 feet at 500 feet per minute. He set the autopilot heading to 180 degrees, straight south, and looked at his Garmin navigation system to see the weather pattern 100 miles in front of him. The weather radar showed the line of an approaching weather system, but the line on the small screen was somehow innocuous and unconcerning. Through the windshield, Carl could see the building storm clouds. They were large, dark, and angry in the distance.
The springtime storm was caused by a low pressure system coming off the Gulf of Mexico, traveling across Texas and moving strongly towards the northwest. This system was about to slam into a southbound high pressure system which had started its southern push in the far reaches of northern Canada. It rolled across the wide open Great Plains, bringing the last of the cooler weather into north Texas. The fronts were colliding, like two massive giants, over the city of Lubbock, a midsized college town in the panhandle of Texas.
As Carl approached 5,000 feet, the plane leveled off automatically, and Carl turned a dial on the autopilot to 100 knots, pushing a button for the autopilot to take over speed control as well. He switched his radio over to a frequency reserved for Federal Emergency Management and keyed the mic, “FEMA base, this is FEMA Air One. I’m at 5,000 feet and eighty miles north of Lubbock. I’m looking at the storm system now.”
“Roger, Air One,” said the FEMA controller at the Federal Emergency Management office for northwest Texas in Abilene, “stand by.”
“I’m standing by,” said Carl, looking at the large cumulonimbus clouds building, now only seventy miles in front of him. The clouds were large, dark, and threatening. Carl could see the thunderheads’ massive, bulbous cloud columns rising to over 60,000 feet in altitude and spreading fast across the flat landscape as the two air systems collided and the warm, moist air was rapidly pushed into the upper atmosphere.
“Air One, this is John Roberts from the National Weather Service office in Dallas, can you tell me what you are seeing?”
“Hello, John, I’m seeing some of the largest cumulonimbus clouds I’ve ever seen. They are building rapidly. I’m guessing your radar is pegging these at greater than 60,000 feet,” said Carl.
“Roger, Air One,” said John.”What are you seeing for wind shear?”
“John, I can see two areas of visible wind shear, one west of the center of the storm and one on the eastern side,” said Carl. He then adjusted his heading to 210 degrees, taking his small plane on a southwesterly heading. “I’m starting to feel some cross currents, I’m changing my heading to the southwest.”
“Roger, Carl, any precipitation yet? I think you’re about fifty miles from the storm and it’s closing in on you fast,” said John.
“I see rain about twenty miles in front of me. Looks like some possible hail beyond that,” said Carl. “I’m trying to flank it now.” He reached up and pushed the throttle forward and increased his airspeed. Carl had an odd thought of watching a sumo wrestling match as he watched the two giant air masses in a pushing match for dominance in the high plains.
In the Abilene airport, the controller watched the airplane with the call sign ‘CV-3’ as it approached the large storm system. On the radar it looked like the smallest minnow approaching the largest whale in the ocean.
The controller keyed his mic, “Charlie Victor Three, this is Abilene tower, Lubbock field altimeter is two, niner, seven, five.”
In the plane, Carl heard the tower and pushed a button to return to the Abilene tower frequency and thumbed his mic button, “Tower, Charlie Victor Three. Lubbock altimeter is two, niner, seven, five.” He switched back to the emergency management frequency and picked up the conversation with the National Weather Service office in Dallas.
“John, Lubbock tower altimeter is two, niner, seven, five,” said Carl while doing some quick math in his head. “That’s a fifteen point drop in barometric pressure versus Abilene.”
“Roger, Air One,” said John. “That’s what I’m seeing too. This system is ripe for tornado activity. I’m starting to see some cloud hooks that may indicate rotations. Carl, you see any funnel formations?”
“Nothing yet,” said Carl as he suddenly felt the plane shudder and the tail move left from a strong wind shear. “Check that, I just hit a wind shear in my current location coming from the west. Do you see any rotation on my location?”
“It looks possible on radar, but you should adjust your heading to 270 degrees and try to skirt the storm,” said John. “There should be smoother air in that direction.”
“Adjusting,” said Carl, as another massive unseen gust struck his plane from the side while he watched his altimeter indicate a fall of 300 feet almost instantaneously. “I’ve taken another hit of wind shear so I’m taking her down to 3,000 and running due west to see if I can get out of this.”
“Roger, Carl. I’ll be standing by,” said John.
In the plane, Carl quickly focused his eyes on the instruments and made the adjustments to change his altitude, slowly bringing the plane down to 3,000 feet while turning the plane directly west. Looking up and out the windshield momentarily, his eyes grew big as he recognized a large tornado beginning to drop from the boiling clouds directly in front of him. He quickly switched off the autopilot and keyed his mic.
“John, I’ve got a tornado dropping right in front of me, I hope you see it on radar. I’m in the wrong place. I’m getting out of here.”
“Roger, Carl, we’re just now seeing the rotation on radar and will set the sirens off on the ground. You stay safe,” said John.
Pulling the plane into a hard right turn, Carl tried to turn away from the increasing winds and severe wind shear on the edge of the cyclonic storm. He watched as his airspeed moved from 100 to sixty-five knots in almost an instant. The altimeter began to spin as the wind shear from the cyclone pushed his small plane towards the ground. At that moment, the storm held the plane in its grip. Every piece of thin aluminum in the plane was screaming as it was being twisted by the massive gusts.
Pushing hard on the yoke and with his right rudder pedal fully depressed, Carl thrust the throttle fully forward for maximum power as he tried to get the small airship away from the oncoming tornado. In his windshield, all he could see was a swirling mass of air the size of two football fields closing in on the small plane. The ground was coming toward him fast as he fought to regain control.
The tornado touched down on the outskirts of Lubbock. At the initial touchdown, the tornado instantly lifted thousands of pounds of dust, weeds, fence posts and anything else that could be lifted by a category three tornado, to almost 8,000 feet. The funnel instantly changed color from a dark blue mass of air rotation into a roiling, dust spewing, behemoth of a monster as red as the soil of northwest Texas. As the tornado traveled along the ground for almost five miles, it damaged twenty-five buildings, three wind farms and six oil wells in a mostly unpopulated part of northwestern Lubbock. Debris from the storm was strewn along the entire path. Somehow, no one on the ground was killed.
Two hours later, at the Abilene airport, the controller was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. His shift had ended about thirty minutes ago. He swore under his breath and said, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
“Hey buddy, you ready to go?” came a voice from across the room. “Beers are on me tonight.”
Looking up, he saw the familiar frame of his big brother, wearing his ball cap and sunglasses as the evening sun was beginning to set.
“Carl, I don’t know how much longer I can do this job with you flying cowboy out there,” said Brandon, the controller.
“What? Oh, that?” said Carl smiling, “Just another day at the office.”
“You almost bought the farm today,” said Brandon, pulling on a light coat to leave. “I thought you did when you dropped off radar.”
“Once I got down to 500 feet, I could get out of that down draft and get away,” said Carl, taking a deep breath and lowering his voice to just above a whisper. “But you’re right Bran, Mom would be upset if she knew what almost happened today. Let’s agree not to tell her, okay?”
“Yeah, I agree,” said Brandon, “but make me a promise you don’t cut it this close again, okay? Mom’s not the only one who would miss you.”
“I hear you brother,” said Carl, almost sheepishly, “If you think it looked bad on radar, let me buy you a beer and tell you what I saw.”
“Let’s go,” said Brandon standing up from his desk. “Hey, I heard The Outlaws are playing over at Charlie’s. How about we stop there for a beer?”
“Sounds good,” said Carl. “Like I said, it’s on me. I’m just happy to be here and spending some money tonight.”
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Brandon asked, as he pulled a cap on and they walked towards the door.
Carl smiled at his brother. “I’m looking for a new job, Bran. In ten years of flying, I’ve never been as scared as I was this afternoon. If the plane had not pulled out of the nosedive, I’d be buried in a cotton field right now. To be totally honest, I was flying away from the storm and shaking like a leaf for the next hour. I think my hands were still shaking when I landed.” Carl slowly shook his head, “There must be easier ways to make a living with a pilot’s license. I think I’m going to explore my options.”
“Buried in a cotton field,” said Brandon, smiling. “There’s got to be a country song out there with that lyric. I’m gonna ask the band tonight!”
“If there is,” laughed Carl, “you’re buying the beer!”