This weeks lessons learned comes from a mistake I personally made last week and it’s one I’m very glad to have gotten away from.
We all make mistakes some of us may be to proud to announce them, others brush them under the rug. I for one want to share mine with you so you can avoid this situation.
Coming back from an IFR cross country we were direct KOCF with about 35 miles to go. Right in our path was a line of thunderstorms about 6 miles in length “no problem” I though to myself. The controller informed us of the line and categorized it as “light to moderate precipitation”
At 5,000 feet it looked as though we might just barely skim the bottoms of the storms.
As we entered just under the storm it was intermittent IFR, primarily because of the strong turbulence driving us in and out of the clouds. The controller came on the radio and said “12R descend to 2,000 feet at pilot’s desecration” and descend we did. I looked over at our altimeter as it began moving faster than I had ever seen it! To verify this I check my VSI, it was pegged at 2,000 feet per minute. Looking outside the cockpit our nose was in straight and level flight and our attitude indicator agreed.
We were caught in a downdraft…
Grabbing the controls I applied full power and made an extremely shallow left turn. Within a few seconds our altitude stabilized at 2,000 feet. We had travelled from 5,000 feet to 2,000 feet in no more than 20 seconds.
My failure to respect mother nature and realize potential hazards put us into that mess. Thankfully I remembered from my training days that downdrafts and microbursts are typically concentrated areas. This is why I initiated the shallow left turn.
I’m thankful I can learn from my mistake and share it with you. Never be afraid to admit your mistakes and learn from them.
I’ve learned to better respect mother nature even if they only call it “light to moderate.”
