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THUNDERSTORM OVER HENG CHUNG
Dick Reichelt
We were coming out of Yokota heading SW en route to Nam to score our 'combat
time' Sometimes it was really spooky. NO, no, not getting shot at in Nam , but
rather getting lightning bolts hurled at the nose dome by ZEUS en route TO Nam.
Sometimes we had to defer to the B-52s. Go get em guys! They were given blocks
of the 'good' altitudes because of their mission, fuel requirements, and
everything else.
It seems that as many times that I went over Hengchung on the south tip of
Taiwan, there was ALWAYS a humongous thunderstorm sitting right there. Well,
with the high altitudes ,where we could have evaded the 'tops', already taken
by the bombers, that left the mid altitudes for us to to flounder through,
18,000 ft is not a good nimbus penetration altitude ,not good at all.
It was on one of these 'runs' that I made a vow….
We were already ' in the soup' not up high lounging in our spacious cockpit,
enjoying the sun. Rather we were being jostled and bounced and having to
'work'. We leaned heavily on the navigator and the radar to get us around any
storm cells. It was getting darker and darker very quickly..
The AF attitude on this subject is: Don't fly in thunderstorms.
But…we had a load of stuff for our fighting men, there's a war to be
won, we left home a week ago to get this stuff to em, and we weren't about to
turn back and get clearance back through the stream.
Press on and we're in it baby. It seems every thunderstorm you go through is
the worst one. THIS was the worst one. St. Elmo's fire has the place in an
eerie pink.` I mean it was alive. I swear it was dancing inside on our
fingertips. All around the windows-everywhere! The rain is heavy. It is
hammering us hard.
I can still hear the navigator saying, !@#%*!!. Which I took to mean this isn't
gonna be good. It wasn't! We bounced and stretched the seat belts. The panels
were vibrating so badly we couldn't read the instruments. Things that were up
were falling down. The airframe was suffering I could feel it.
I want to stop right here and give tribute to our American engineering and well
built equipment, and perhaps, the luck of the draw!
'Left 20 degrees! Oh crap, that's worse! right 45 degrees' BAM! The turbulence
is severe. BAM! We are really being rattled!
Now the book says take the airplane OFF the auto pilot in turbulence. Now if
you thought that's what I did ,If you thought I was gonna interrupt George
which was doing a such a superb job keeping us right side up, you're mistaken.
We are all hanging on. Did I mention lightning? Lightning is adding to the
drama with some loud BLASTS aimed right at our nose dome. Blast Flash at the
same time, we were alone and really getting shaken. I kept looking back at the
right wing and # 1 engine.
The C141 wing was fairly stiff out to the spot where the outboard engine was
hung, from there it became more flexible. This afternoon, looking out at that
wing joint over #1 I just KNEW that if a wing was EVER gonna break -that's
where! Right there. So THAT'S when I made my VOW, Never, never was I ever gonna
look out there again…
OUT the other side of the Hengchung super-nimbus-dragon we popped, all is
serene. On we flew to DaNang.
09/18/2004
Richard (Dick) Reichelt
richreichelt@sbcglobal.net
5690 Schaefer Ave. Suite H
Chino, Ca.91710