Gust front moved a 727 at MKE tonight.

[FN FAL]

I didn't see it move, I was in the air with my own problems at the time. Plus, several of the parked caravans wound up with broken prop retaining straps. Never seen that one before. Looks like the wind was strong enough to turn the nose wheel of the 727 pretty hard and skewed the plane about 30 degrees off of it's parking spot. One of the rampies said the tailstand may have gotten bent.

There were planes and airliners holding all over the place, lightning was pretty cool as well. On the way home, I heard the news say a farm might have gotten hit by a small tornado in northern WI.

Any of you guys see some bad wx tonight? (wed 03/30/11).

 

[Metro752]

A 757 at Midway had this happen a few months back. The fault was said to have been having the bypass pin inserted and the nose gear not being chocked properly. I dunno.

 

[FN FAL]

Its vicious from Albama north into Michigan right now.

I'm sure we got the least of the worst weather that was out there, but I did also hear in the news that one town in WI had to call out snow plows to remove hail from the highways. I was listening to FOX local TV news on the FM in the car on the commute home. From the description of the scene the hail was thick enough to look like snow.

The beginning of my trip was right at sunset. Most of what was out there was kind of dark looking with bases just above me at 5,000 msl. There's something comforting about being vmc when the clouds get tall and dark and it's night out.

Closer to MKE the light show got pretty spectacular. When the controller gave me routing over two VOR's with an expectation of holding at the second one for 15 minutes, I pulled her back to about 900 ft lbs and put in 10 degrees of flaps, which netted me about 100 knots or so. My ground speed varied from 45 to 75 knots.

The MKE controllers do an excellent job of working us around this stuff, but sometimes you look at your scope and wonder wtf?

The rampies said the gust front hit so fast, all they could do was dive for cover in the caravans.

 

[Makesheepnervus]

I made a tech stop at St. Johns, NFL last December and noted that the winds before our arrival were recorded at 60k gusting 80k. While we were taking fuel at Shell Aero we asked how the stong winds had affected operations and the line guys pointed to a 727 parked next to us and said that the winds had caused the 72' to jump the chocks and slide a substantial distance across the ramp!

 

[TIGV]

Flew MKC-CVG-MDW-CPS-MDW-MKC,

Saw a pretty good light-show, some good ice and some mod tbc going through that poop first two legs......season's here folks, time to start using that cargo net again. ( ooops )

 

[BD King]

Hey guys, that's the real world. Glad I left it.

 

[FN FAL]

Flew MKC-CVG-MDW-CPS-MDW-MKC,

Saw a pretty good light-show, some good ice and some mod tbc going through that poop first two legs......season's here folks, time to start using that cargo net again. ( ooops )

yea, it was pretty flickery out that night...the calculator I leave on the glare shield never moved though. Maybe I fly to slow to get that zero-g stuff?

 

[TIGV]

get on 123.40 FN we'll shoot the breeze sometime, 11pm till 3 or so, somewhere in the Midwest...

 

[FN FAL]

Holy Moly...that's some true freight dawg hours!

 

[TIGV]

LOL, actually I start out in MKC at 9 pm and terminate back in MKC at 0730 the next morning, 6.4 hours of heating oil time in the deuce with a 3 hour break in between.

 

[TurboS7]

Cargo net safty is in case you run off the runway, or make an off-field landing. I know of several pilots that are not with us anymore, crushed by the cargo. Think about it.

 

[TIGV]

Cargo net safty is in case you run off the runway, or make an off-field landing. I know of several pilots that are not with us anymore, crushed by the cargo. Think about it.

I agree completely, for those who apparently missed my point about it being: " net season " again, this was intended as a fun filled comment alluding to the type of weather us freighters ' rock ' through this time of year and was not intended as an operational directive.
This is mainly because those of us who have got this far in our career actually have the common sense to know better and don't require me to place a disclaimer below every humorous comment I make.

(The above post in no way reflects actual or real events and any similarity to those events is purely coincidental, in addition the author wishes to make clear that at no time should a person wrap themselves in, have sex on, use as a fishing net or in fact do anything other than what was intended by the cargo net's manufacturer.)