Good evening. I had what was supposed to be a relatively uneventful night flight on Tuesday that turned into an extremely eventful divert-adventure that lasted into Thursday morning.
The plan was to takeoff around 8pm, let Calvin beat up the pattern a bit while the sun set, then head off to AR197L (the classic Mexican-border-straddling horseshoe track) for a double AR to hit two 17s. Then I could hop in the seat and tear it up at KAMA (the last city in Texas that I still haven't been to) and get back on the ground at Altus around 0130. Storms were in the MEF and TAF but it should've only been an issue while we were on the track and at Amarillo. But that proved not to be the case, evidence being a SATCOM call while I was doing my A/P off AR. I quickly punched the SAT1 button on my interphone panel to discreetly listen in. I only listened for a few moments (because I was fucking busy at the moment) but I heard a lot of technical terms like "bigass storm" and "damaging winds" which to me was an initial indication of us having an interesting night. I got a little excited, I mean I was in the left seat and I've written in substantial detail about how much I love the chaos of flying in sporadic weather.
Anyway, we finished up the second AR and ended up present position holding to see if the storms would pass—and they didn't, in fact they intensified. The IB (instructor boom) really didn't want to divert because it was her daughters first day of school the next morning, so the IP and I said if there was a hole we'd at least attempt to get into Altus. Altus weather was telling us a hole was developing if we accepted a tailwind but we'd have to hurry, so we booked it out of holding to give it a try. It didn't go well. We almost got struck by lightning, indicated by all of our glass instruments glitching and glittering. Then a long series of lightning lit up the clouds in front of us and it was just a wall of shit and the IP and I simultaneously said "NOPE!" and peeled off.
At that point we were down to 27k of fuel left and we started looking at divert options. McConnell appeared to be the best option, so the next step is seeing how much fuel it would take to get there... which was also 27k so we thought "hmmm... we should probably get going in that direction." So we did and touched down in beautiful Wichita. And that's how I added Kansas to my list of states!
I was in the left seat (for the very first time in a heavy), so even though the IP landed it I got to do the speedbrakes and rollout braking and then taxi us in. I was expecting the first time taxiing a heavy to be under very controlled and favorable circumstances. As opposed to, ya know, IMC at night with wet surfaces on an unfamiliar field.
Then we spent the night in Kansas, with no change of clothes or any of those luxuries. So I'm becoming more seasoned at being miserable in between flights, just like my college summer days flying to Asia with Karen. Then when we went back to the flightline twelve hours later we discovered the brakes were cracked (I SWEAR TO GOD IT WASN'T MY FAULT, even though I did the landing and taxi braking. Seriously.) So we had to wait another 8 hours which was spent bowling, playing crud, going to the movies, etc. all in dirty flight suits. Then we flew home.
On a side note, I was extremely excited to taxi a heavy for my first time. The reason, other than the amazing feeling of those gentle bumps and sways from the wings flexing that I've always wanted to be at the helm of, goes back to my early days as a pilot. I was in one of my first lessons with Jody in little Piper 2866W. I had never used my feet to steer before and my coarse motor skills weren't yet developed. So taxiing out I was a little squirrelly, you know a few zig zags and a little sensitivity issues with the differential brakes, but hey it's not like I was in a Formula 1 race. I apologized for being a fuckup, especially since I wanted to one day be taxiing giants, and Jody responded by talking out of his ass, "hey those big planes are EASY to taxi. They have hydraulic steering and tillers and everything. It's these little planes that are the most difficult to taxi."
That caught me by surprise, considering...
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