What Is Inside a Thunderstorm

The Caravan at rest.

Last week, one of our guys was flying the Caravan from Goma to Kisangani with no passengers. He departed Goma and did a spiral climb to 14,000 feet to clear the mountains and then headed west. There were many clouds over the mountains that were higher than he was but nothing that looked like a storm. He kept the airplane on autopilot and entered the clouds expecting not much.

At first there was nothing, then heavy rain, then some light turbulence; the autopilot kicked off and then WHAM! WHAM!, it started. Severe to extreme turbulence, with sharp edged gusts (the difference between a normal gust and a sharp edged gust is the difference between slowly rolling over a speed bump and driving fast off a loading dock) and heavier rain. He said the airplane went up a thousand feet, it went down almost as much. It banked left 80 degrees, then right the same amount. It went faster then it slowed down. Rain was pounding the plane and lighting was flashing.

He was fighting to keep the plane upright and to keep it from sinking into the mountains below. He moved the throttle up and back to no discernable effect the whole time thinking "I might not get out of this. I might really die." Wing goes down,try to get it back up. Keep the nose level. Watch your speed. We're sinking. There is a mountain down there! Keep the nose level. Power, now! No, that's too much. "I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here."

And so it went for 10 minutes; or maybe more or maybe less, perception of time changes when you think your going to die, until he broke out of it into clear sky. He figured it wasn't full blown thunderstorm, just a cloud that was rapidly growing into one just as he flew into it. Sometimes you run into those, clouds that shouldn't try so hard to get you but do anyway.

So, what is inside a thunderstorm? Fear. Black shadow, eye popping fear. But not panic inducing fear. Because Pete Conrad said if you can control the airplane, even a little bit, you are not allowed to panic. Our guy didn't but it was not an uneventful flight.

There, now you know why pilots try so hard to stay out of thunderstorms.