Comments on: Thunderstorms? Who’s afraid of those?

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:19:38 +0000

Well, I live in Florida, the lightning capital of the world. You betcha I never go out, without a weather eye to the sky.

I think I adverted here, a while back, to an account of a Naval Aviator who ejected from his F8U in the middle of a thunderstorm over Ohio or some similar benighted place, and went up and down in that thing for an hour or two before it finally let go of him.

The hailstones beat him up right badly, I think.

There was a book written about that, called “The Man Who Rode the Thunder”, I believe.

I’d really like to read that, but I think the thing is rare and out of print

By: MissBirdlegs in AL

MissBirdlegs in AL — Thu, 10 May 2007 01:30:13 +0000

I flew (as a passenger) from B’ham to DFW one evening in thunderstorms all the way – a miserable trip. We had to stay away from the terminal for about 45 minutes after we landed because of lightning strikes loving the plane’s tail. Had I known the pilot felt like you guys, I wouldn’t have been so calmly reassuring the first time fliers on board.

I’m not one bit fond of lightning since I came home from work one day a couple of years ago to a collapsed carport and everything electronic in my house totally fried, among many other weird things. It had struck a big tree beside the carport & blew out one of the brick support columns. From the evidence, I’m extremely lucky the house didn’t catch on fire – lots & lots of smoky spots around the entire house.

By: Babs

Babs — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:39:25 +0000

This is not to mention serfing down 20′ waves out in the gulf of Maine, everyone tied onto the boat, both of my brothers screaming like they were on LSD, and one of them turning to me and saying “don’t worry, I’m insured for a million dollars.”
That really was the trip of a lifetime…

Several years later I “tried out” to crew for a 50′ boat that was going from SoCal to HI. We went out for the day and just the coastal waves made the majority of the crew hurl. It was so bad that the side of the boat needed to be washed down when we got back in.
Needless to say, I decided I didn’t want to crew the boat to HI. Never mind that it was a “vegetarian” cook.
The boat was sponsored by a community college in SoCal. Someone called me a few weeks later. I told them that I was not willing to serve on a boat where the first mate was hurling over the side within sight of land…

By: Babs

Babs — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:27:36 +0000

Crewed a delivery cruise along with both my brothers of a brand new 40′ J boat during a gale from Rhode Island to Castine Maine… At the time, I had an 8 month old and a 2 year old being babysat by my sister in law. We made it through, lots of puke and broken gear. My sister in law said to me “yesterday, I decided I would marry your husband if you and my husband didn’t make it through”…
I’ll never forget it and, I spent the better part of my life crewing boats.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 09 May 2007 20:58:02 +0000

Me too. Although not emanating from the like experiences as you & above commenters have expounded on, not that I wouldn’t be if I had. In the job that I’ve had, lo these many years, a few moments of well placed lightning strikes can result in DAYS of frustration returning a once perfectly functioning electrical distribution system to normal. Seeing anvil shaped clouds hanging about, leaves you with a sense of impending doom, kind of hits you right in the abdominal region. It’s nice to enjoy a good thunderstorm when you are visiting another area, though there is always that nagging feeling that some poor sap, in the environs you presently occupy, is suffering a nightmere he can’t escape.

By: JR Peck

JR Peck — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:44:06 +0000

Thanks for pulling those up from the archives. I love to hear about things from the other point of view. Always have been – not many of my shipmates read through every issue of approach like I did.

I imagine you all were happy to have that tanker up their orbiting above the boat. I just remember long, long nights – looking up and knowing that as long as I could see those lights up there, we hadn’t recovered everybody. I was oh so happy when they came home and we could post-op the gear and catch a little shut eye before we were up and at em for the first event that would only be a few hours away.